Original subtitles

Hey, pumpkin.

What are you doing?

Abby was very artistic, very creative.

She just enjoyed helping other people.

Libby was a ball of sunshine.

She would have made great changes in this world.

-We like Gina and Pam. -Martin.

-We gon' pose for this cam. -Cheese.

We don't want your man.

Libby and Abby were the best of friends.

I'm her bestie. I am.

The person that did this to these girls is pure evil.

Neighbors in Delphi, Indiana,

stunned at the tragic murders of two teenage girls.

We're checking the cell phones.

We're checking their social media.

Nobody ever thought something like this

would happen in Delphi.

Just felt like a horror movie.

Liberty German captured this image

and audio in the moments before her death.

He became known as Bridge Guy.

Investigators want to speak

to the man in this photo.

Police are now releasing

a detailed sketch of the suspect.

Is it a neighbor? Is it an acquaintance?

Bridge Guy is the bogeyman.

Could that be my dad?

What if somebody I know did this?

The Bridge Guy video captured people's attention

all around the world.

Two girls murdered.

In Delphi, Indiana.

The Delphi murders.

-Delphi. -Delphi.

It's just a bloodlust for the gruesome details

and a witch hunt.

Nobody could have imagined

30,000 tips from people all over the world.

Police say they obtained probable cause

to search the home.

Libby was speaking to a sex predator.

There were ritualistic aspects to the crime scene.

Odinism, human sacrifice.

It came as a complete shock.

More than five years after those two

young girls vanished, a man is now in custody.

Do you really expect us to buy this?

You had 70 days of interviews that were lost.

None of the errors or technical difficulties

that we had were intentional.

I'm like, oh, my God, this is an innocent guy.

He's guilty and always will be.

It's been nonstop roller coaster.

We heard people were paying people to sit in line for them.

Kind of turned into a true crime playground.

This is entertainment for you, but this is my life.

I describe Delphi as a very quaint, charming community.

Home of the Wabash and Erie Canal.

It's just a small town

like if you were watching the Andy Griffith Show.

You have a little town square, a little town of 3,000 people.

Everybody knows everybody.

11 years ago,

we started the Indiana Bacon Festival

because we are the bacon capital in Indiana.

There's trails to walk, fishing,

a lot of nice little restaurants.

Never had crime that we heard about.

I think that's one of the reasons we picked a small town.

When I was growing up, the big joke was

it had one stoplight in the entire town.

And I believe now we have two stoplights.

It's just a good, wholesome area to be in.

Um, at least it used to be.

I miss the innocence of Delphi when we were young.

We had to grow up pretty quick.

It's a community where people didn't even

lock their doors at night.

But that changed.

Good.

Yeah, I'm OK.

This is Carrie's interview.

Take one, mark.

I grew up not far from Delphi.

I moved there when I was 19.

It was that summer that I met Derrick.

We got married six months after Kelsi was born.

And then we found out that we were pregnant with Libby.

We named her Liberty Rose Lynn.

And it's very, very fitting.

She was just a free spirit.

She knew what she wanted, and she was going to get it.

Strong-willed, strong everything.

Like, very, very strong personality-wise.

Come here.

Not really sure exactly when things went wrong.

Libby wasn't very old.

Made some pretty poor decisions.

I was incarcerated.

Derrick was incarcerated.

Derrick and I split.

I moved to Kentucky, and Derrick's parents

ended up taking guardianship of the girls.

-Libby was... -Three.

Three years old when they moved in with us,

and we had the honor to raise them.

Libby knew that I was intent on moving back to Indiana,

and Libby and I talked all the time on the phone.

She wanted everyone to be laughing all the time

and always wanted everyone to be happy.

When you decide to be fancy after shaving.

It burns. It burns.

It's red. It burns. It burns.

She always wanted to do crazy things,

you know, get us into any types of trouble

with Grandma and Grandpa.

She had just turned 14,

and she was already growing up so fast.

I'm OK.

We're good.

I was three months out of high school when I got pregnant,

and it obviously was not something

I was ready or prepared for, and I was

very fortunate that I had a family

that helped me through it.

But I wouldn't change anything now.

And she came into the world and Mom said,

well, what are you going to call her?

I said, I'm going to go with Abigail.

Aw, pretty.

Well, Abby was the very first grandchild in our house,

and she was the best thing.

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone

that didn't just love her.

Whoa.

She's like...

La, la, la.

Hi, Abigail.

Look at Grandma.

Abigail liked music and liked to read.

She really liked to read.

She was smart and kind and considerate

and very affectionate.

Abby had very eccentric taste in her clothing.

She liked a lot of bright colors.

She was... I wouldn't say timid but just very soft-spoken.

Abby was very friendly, and I think

that's why her and Libby clicked so well

is just, they were very, very nice people

and loved everybody.

Abby and Libby were in middle school together.

Libby played the saxophone in band.

Both of them did, and they sat next to each other.

They played volleyball together.

And I think they just hit it off and were good friends.

Libby and Abby tried to spend every moment

they could together.

And they just... they loved each other a lot.

Abby went on vacation with us to Florida one year.

She had a blast.

We always would take our family trip up to northern Michigan.

She asked if she could, you know, bring Libby with her,

and Mom said, maybe next summer.

Only we didn't get next summer.

There is definitely a before and after February 13, 2017.

It is definitely a line in the sand for

life before and life after in our family.

I mean, it's never going to be the same.

We weren't in school on Monday the 13th

because we had a makeup snow day.

Abby had stayed the night at Libby's house.

And the sun's shining and it's over 50 degrees

in the beginning of February.

That's when the guys start getting the motorcycles out,

and spring is just around the corner.

The girls got up, and my son Derrick,

who is Libby's father, had made them breakfast.

Libby's sister, Kelsi, said that she was going

to go to her boyfriend's house,

and Libby jumped up and said,

hey, will you take us out to the trails?

I mean, the entire trail system, it... you know,

it's... it's meant to bring you from town out to the bridge,

bridge back to town.

So it is the 501 Trail that would lead

up to the Monon High Bridge.

And at the Monon High Bridge

is where that trail terminates.

The Monon High Bridge was kind of like a place away

from our parents, where we could go and mess around.

It was very secluded, but it was very pretty.

So Libby looked at me and said, can we go?

Dad's going to pick us up.

I said, well, you better take a jacket because

it might get chilly, you know, and...

and the last words she said to me,

she was standing there and she said,

Grandma, I'll be OK.

She turned around and walked out.

Uh, she was happy.

She was smiling when she left.

That was around 1:30.

And it was about 3:30 when Derrick called me.

He had tried calling Libby and she didn't answer.

He got out and walked a little bit, didn't see them.

He called me and he said,

Libby's not answering her phone.

That's not like Libby.

I was at work waiting tables, bartending

at a local restaurant, and the phone started ringing.

And it was Becky telling me that

the girls had gone on a walk

and when Derrick went to pick them up, they weren't there.

I was not immediately concerned.

I really just assumed that the girls were just goofing off,

you know, losing track of time.

Mike and I went to the trails,

and we got out and walked a little bit.

Didn't see them.

And finally I said, I think

we need to call the police

because it's going to be dark soon.

In February of 2017, I was the chief deputy

of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department.

At around 5:15 PM, we received a call from Mike Patty,

the grandfather.

And the deputies arrived at the trail

shortly after, started looking on foot for the girls.

I got the phone call from Kelsi a little bit before 6:00.

She said, Mom, have you seen Libby?

Now, you have to realize that I was living in Kentucky,

250 miles away, and I was at work.

So I was like, what?

No, obviously I haven't seen Libby.

What do you mean?

And she said, Mom, we can't find Libby.

And I literally dropped to my knees.

We started getting information

out there on social media.

My mom sees on Facebook that they're missing.

I got a text from my mom.

My sister asked me if I had heard from her.

The news spread quickly through our community.

We were starting to get some phone calls like,

hey, I may have saw them here, or I may have saw them there.

And that's how I think we saw the Snapchat photo.

Around 2:07, Libby posted a picture of Abby to Snapchat.

Somebody sent it and said, hey, they were on the bridge.

Monon High Bridge, it's an old railroad bridge

that's a very dangerous bridge to be walking on.

It's very up high off the ground.

It's got a creek that runs underneath it.

The railroad ties have big gaps in between them.

At that point, they started to look under the bridge,

trying to locate the girls.

I'd seen Libby's Snap story,

but her posting a picture of Abby on it

and posting a picture of the bridge

wasn't really anything out of the ordinary.

When I first saw the Snapchat photo,

I said, Abs in big trouble.

She's in big trouble.

I think the worry set in once it becomes dark.

You know, they weren't dressed to be out there,

and the temperature's dropping.

My nephew worked at the local TV station.

And he came and said, hey, let me help you.

Let's get this out on the news.

Two Carroll County girls have gone missing

near the Monon High Bridge trail in Delphi.

The news had showed up.

Scary situation right now, and I just...

I just want her home.

I just remember the news flash came on.

It was like, there's two girls missing in Delphi,

and I'm like, did I hear that right?

Police are asking for the public's help.

If anyone knows anything about where they could be.

At some point, it was like the whole town of Delphi

was literally lit up with flashlights.

People were out looking.

This is getting serious.

It's getting scary.

The police called me in about midnight

and told me that they were calling off the search.

It is very treacherous terrain out there,

and they were worried about volunteers

and, uh, officers getting injured.

I was livid.

These girls are lost.

They're hurt. They're freezing.

And I just could not wrap my head

around them calling off the search.

I still can't.

We just knew they were hurt and we needed to find them.

The morning of February 14th,

going to school was hard.

I mean, you walk in the doors

and it's like, nobody's laughing.

It's quiet.

There's a fear that this could be bad.

13-year-old Abigail Williams

and Liberty German were reported missing yesterday.

I arrived on February 14th, uh,

outside the volunteer fire department

to a scene of searchers

and other local news outlets,

Indianapolis-based news outlets.

Police continue to search for two teenage girls

who went missing early yesterday.

It's been nearly 24 hours, of course,

since they were reported missing.

Police, sheriffs, firefighters,

and the Department of Natural Resources

are all involved in the search for those teenagers right now.

Delphi was very, very strong.

Everybody came together and just had one goal,

and that was to find those girls.

We were out in the middle of this field.

We had finished our grid and we were walking back

and a friend of ours came running up to us.

Uh, her husband had called her and said they found them.

So two searchers spotted

some clothing in the creek that was up against a jam.

And from there on a little bit further,

they located the two missing girls.

I was on my way to the gas station,

and my phone rang.

It was Derrick.

The pastor of our church said hey, Anna, has anybody...

anybody come talk to you, like, just now?

And I... I said, no.

He goes, well, I need you to come with me and come upstairs.

And I answered the phone, you know, kind of, you know,

half excited, like, oh, God, this is...

this is what I've been waiting for.

And he said, so we... we found the girls.

They found them.

He said, Carrie, they found the girls.

But that's all they... that's all they said to us.

And I was, for, like, a split second,

so happy.

I looked over, and my sister was sitting on a trailer.

I was excited.

I went running over there, and I said, they found them.

And it was not what we thought it was at all.

And she just kept crying and saying, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

But he didn't say anything.

So I'm... are they OK?

He said, no.

We have found two bodies in Deer Creek

about a mile east of town.

Um, we are investigating this as... as a, uh, crime scene.

Uh, we suspect foul play.

The bodies were found over there,

just up past the bank,

near some trees, on some property over there.

Looking at this crime scene, you... you just...

you got a sense that there was just something very sinister,

very evil that had occurred.

It just felt different than any crime scene

that I have ever seen.

This case very much still haunts me.

Libby was closest to the biggest tree.

And then Abby was off to the side of her.

Libby was completely nude, no clothing on whatsoever.

Uh, the injuries were very noticeable.

You could see blood around her neck and on her hands as well.

Uh, there were branches laid upon her.

And then Abby was off to the side of her,

which she was dressed.

Later we learned that Abby was wearing Libby's clothes.

It appeared that the girls had been moved a very short

distance from the original spot of where they

were possibly murdered.

There was marks that appeared to be drag marks.

There was some blood on a tree at the scene.

It was ultimately determined that it was Libby's blood.

Some people believe that the killer deliberately wrote

something with Libby's blood.

The branches that was on the girls,

was it to cover them up,

or was there a meaning behind it?

Makes you wonder whether this was a satanic-type killing.

I've done over 7,000 autopsies,

but this case stands out.

The fact that these were two teenage girls,

that it was an outdoor scene in northern Indiana,

we just don't see that sort of thing on a routine basis.

This is purely speculative, but I'm going to guess probably

that Abby was the first to die and that after Libby saw

that Abby had been killed, she realized this was

a life-or-death struggle, which prompted her now

to put up a fight because obviously

it's, you know, do or die,

hence the reason that she had had multiple wounds

across her neck.

We found a single roughly half-inch

sharp force injury to the neck

deep enough to hit one of her jugular veins on Abby.

I did not see anything to indicate

any type of sexual assault.

In the case of Libby, as far as I could tell,

there was no evidence of a sexual assault with her either.

That doesn't quite add up.

If you're going to strip them down,

why did we find no evidence of sexual assault?

Libby's got four total injuries to her neck.

I describe them as serrated-like,

but I could never really figure out what had

caused those sort of wounds.

I mean, this is a much more adrenaline-fueled

sort of attack compared to what we had with Abby.

What kind of evil person would want

to commit a crime like this?

We have not gotten that far into the investigation.

We are asking for anyone to come forward

who might have seen somebody out there on Monday,

especially if they were near the Monon High Bridge.

I just remember my husband, Ricky, was like,

well, I was out on the trail.

I said, you need to go tell somebody

at the police department you were on the trail.

So he met with this conservation officer.

He goes, you know, they just took my information

and left it at that.

After they told us that the girls were deceased,

I do remember that they took us all into different rooms.

And I'm answering all these questions,

thinking I'm just helping them.

And later on, I realized, no, they...

they were interrogating us.

I was just waiting, trying to find out what happened.

I couldn't possibly have imagined what it was.

There is a lot of ugliness in Delphi,

and things started being revealed.

No, I'm excited.

We were children when it happened.

To mourn one of your best friends when you're a child,

it's very, very hard.

We were all super close friends.

I can't believe you still have this.

Yeah.

I forgot I still had it.

Her laugh.

Right now, we're rearranging Libby's room

and it's kind of a mess.

Yep, Libby's got a good idea.

She's just going to move it herself.

And then she's like,

I'm just going to jump off of it.

And I said, OK, and then she hit her head on my wall.

It hurt really bad.

I hit it, like, up there.

It was funny, though.

That is so funny.

Libby and Abby were the kindest people I knew.

They were robbed, and we were all robbed.

Overnight, Delphi changed.

It was shock, sadness,

um, the realization that something

really truly evil was here.

The whole town was devastated.

I felt so badly, especially for the mothers.

An emotional day

saying goodbye to Abby and Libby.

A huge crowd gathered here at Delphi Middle and High Schools

for a private visitation.

I don't know how we got through.

I do remember we learned how Libby died

because the funeral director told us we needed

to bring in clothes, and he said,

you need to make sure you have a scarf.

It took a while to hit me, oh...

oh, she needs a scarf.

I mean, nobody would tell us,

but that's how we figured it out.

I mean, the dumbest thing I've ever had to do

is pick out a casket.

It's the strangest question anybody will ever ask you

is to pick out a casket for your child.

None of it seemed real.

Law enforcement was at the viewing,

obviously scanning for people, looking for things.

Going to their viewing, I was very scared because I'm like,

oh, my gosh, like, this person

could be standing right beside me.

It is a case that is in the national spotlight,

and there are no answers in sight,

and that has many people on edge.

We're checking the cell phones.

We're checking their social media.

We're looking at every possible option.

The investigation was in full swing,

and people are coming to your home

and they're going through the rooms

And they're talking to the friends.

But, you know, no new updates.

No, we cannot do that at this time.

What made it feel like it was a particular sinister

crime scene was the fact that they weren't releasing details.

We're not... at this point in time, I don't even

want to mention that either.

They wouldn't tell us how the girls were killed.

They wouldn't tell us how the girls were found.

But we had heard rumors

that the girls had had their necks cut.

There were rumors going around right away.

Everybody's calling everybody.

Everybody's alarmed.

Everybody's scared.

My response is... is no.

Two girls just got murdered in our town.

How... how can we not be fearful?

Nobody really had an answer on who

was out there killing children.

You were scared of anyone and everyone.

It was a nightmare.

But then we had a big break in the case.

Breaking new details emerging tonight.

A breakthrough in the Delphi double murder investigation.

New developments in the case of two young girls

killed while hiking in Indiana.

Tonight, new chilling evidence

Indiana investigators believe could help them solve

the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German.

They say one of the girls

secretly recorded him before they were killed.

Shown in front of me, an enlarged depiction

of the person believed to be the suspect in this case.

We are actively looking for this person.

The police were able to retrieve video

from Libby's phone, where she had recorded

a person on the bridge that was directly behind Abby.

The photo that was distributed was taken off the video

that Libby had recorded on her phone.

Libby actually held the phone down to her side,

which was upside down at the time,

and was only able to capture the person on the bridge

for just a brief few seconds, if that.

The police then released audio from the video

from Libby's phone.

We're going to share this audio clip with you

momentarily, with the hope that somebody

will recognize this voice.

I want to be very clear that what you're about to hear

is just three words.

Play the clip, please.

The audio is also from Liberty's phone.

She had the presence of mind to have the phone on

and to capture video, as well as audio.

That Libby was able to get the video was very amazing.

She wasn't going to go down without a fight,

without having him on her phone and having

a trail of breadcrumbs that led right to him.

Each and every person listening,

watching, or seeing this in some form,

we need you.

Libby and Abby need you.

We believe this person is our suspect.

Someone knows who this individual is.

Is it a family member?

Is it a neighbor?

Is it an acquaintance?

I think a lot of folks thought it was somebody local

because of the bridge itself and its location.

It would not be something easily found

if you didn't know the area well.

Nobody just happens across it.

What if I know him?

What if somebody I know did this?

Call us.

You could be the person that helps us

to solve this horrible crime.

The man on the bridge became known as Bridge Guy.

The video and the audio from the Bridge Guy video

captured people's attention all around the world.

It was shocking when this became such a global story

and such a high-profile case.

It was on every news channel that you could think of.

Now, here's another look at the man

police are so desperate to talk to.

The FBI is asking people across the country.

Here's the image police want the public to see.

Over 11,000 tips have been submitted.

And the reward for any information

leading to an arrest is now up to $1/4 million.

I've never seen as many resources

thrown at a case like this.

Unified Command was set up.

It was this task force with not just the state police

but with the, uh, FBI and other federal agencies.

I'm sure Delphi thought it was going

to be solved within days.

I was really hopeful.

I'm like, OK, this is enough, right?

Somebody's going to recognize this person.

I don't think anybody realized how difficult

it would be to identify Bridge Guy.

My name is Tom Webster.

I was an office manager and executive assistant

to, like, the CEO of a bank when I first got into the case.

But now I'm just doing online content.

I saw the video and the audio from the Bridge Guy video,

and I absolutely became obsessed with this case.

Well, law enforcement asked for help and tips,

but they didn't really give a lot of information.

So it was up to YouTubers and people online

to do the research on their own

and then share it online.

It's, like, wide out in the open,

so it's really dangerous for Bridge Guy

to have walked, not knowing who's going

to be driving on this road.

I thought, let me try to figure out who Bridge Guy was.

You can't really make out the facial features.

So I kind of focused on the non-facial features.

He's wearing boots, jeans, and a blue jacket.

I felt like, around his knees,

there was, like, some black spots.

I initially thought maybe it was some holes in his jeans.

A big debate online, was it his hair or a hat?

Bridge Guy appears to be wearing a dark blue jacket

with a material light enough to show the outline

of something in the front pocket.

I see an outline of something in his pocket

and I couldn't really determine what it was.

And that's when we had the retired CSI tech

take a look at it, and he determined it was a gun.

My name is Frankmeister.

It's one word.

I consider myself a true crime enthusiast.

The JonBenét case started to slow down a little bit,

so I started looking for other cases to look at,

and Delphi came across my screen.

I have spent thousands of hours researching

and covering this case.

I have prioritized this case over family and friends.

No, no obsession with the case at all.

It was our job to help law enforcement

if we had any tips.

That was what the police told us they wanted us to do.

I was just trying to help.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to my channel.

This is a live by surprise to report breaking news.

We're getting ready to get on the bridge.

There were a lot of armchair detectives.

Overnight, there was... there was 100 of them.

I couldn't keep up.

I'm not sure that police even knew

what was going to happen once they asked for tips.

Nobody could have imagined 30,000 tips from people

all over the world absolutely obsessed with this case,

accusing various men in the community

of being a double child murderer.

The first time I saw the picture of Bridge Guy,

it could have been anybody.

It really could have been anybody.

In the beginning, I looked at everybody.

The feeling was always there of either

running into somebody at the gas station

or the grocery store.

You never knew if the person you just walked right past

was, you know, the person that did this.

It was like no one could trust anyone anymore,

no matter how long you knew them, how close you were.

It became a witch hunt in Delphi.

The police came to my house,

and they took my dad's DNA.

Like I was terrified because I'm like, what does that mean?

You know, like, could that be my dad?

Nobody was off-limits.

Nobody.

It went so big so fast.

It was information overload.

It was definitely not the normal for Carroll County.

It was hard to keep under control.

On July 17, 2017, the Indiana State Police

released a sketch artist image.

So the sketch was from a witness

that had been on the trail that day that saw

a man that resembled the person

that was in Libby German's video.

Police are now releasing a detailed sketch

of the suspect and saying the five-month-old case

is nowhere near over.

We really thought we would have had

somebody in custody by now.

It didn't happen.

I don't know when I stopped getting excited

about every new thing that came on because

it really was just agonizing.

Was there a time that we felt, why?

Why are we still here? Why is it taking this long?

Certainly, we asked that question.

I was not very confident that they would

be able to... to solve this case.

In April 2019, police had a press conference

for the first time in a few years.

Into a major new development,

police releasing a new sketch tonight.

They revealed this young guy sketch, whereas previously,

it was an older man, like, 35 to 50,

and this new sketch looked like a 20-year-old.

Why is this new sketch so vastly different

than a sketch released nearly two years ago?

This is such a contrast from the first composite photo.

Do you really expect us to buy this,

that it's the same guy?

It turned out that another person

who saw the man on the day of the murders

went to police and said, I'm frustrated that I gave you

this description of this younger man,

yet for the past two years, you've been asking the public

for help finding this older man.

Typically, you don't release two sketches.

And, uh, that was, uh, very confusing

for a lot of people in the community.

Well, obviously, this new sketch,

we've all been looking for the wrong man for 2 1/2 years.

I don't know, it was hard to see the second sketch

and believe that they were on the right track.

As time goes on, you start to lose hope

and you start to believe that they're not

going to find this guy.

I think, over time during this investigation,

the stress is very evident.

We were getting irritated.

These two eighth graders were murdered,

and year after year went on without solving it.

So there was a huge amount of pressure to solve it.

A breakthrough in the Delphi double murder investigation.

This is a day more than five years in the making.

Now to a twist in a shocking crime story

that's captivated so many for years,

the tragic murder of two Indiana teens.

Since the murders of Abby and Libby

2,086 days ago,

the daily investigative team has worked tirelessly.

I am proud to report that an arrest has been made.

When the news was starting to creep out

that there had been an arrest in this case,

it came as a complete shock.

The suspect, investigators say,

was hiding in plain sight.

50-year-old Richard Allen

has been charged for their murders.

My name is Kathy Allen,

and I am the spouse of Richard Allen.

Richard, Rick, Ricky,

he's my husband of 34 years.

He is a family man.

Ricky is a wonderful, caring, compassionate father.

Nonjudgmental, very giving.

He has good morals.

How dare you accuse someone

who is nothing but a people pleaser

and works out in the public?

How dare you?

I want true justice for Abby and Libby,

but it should not be at the expense of an innocent person.