Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / The DELPHI MURDERS: Suspect Richard Allen Bows Head, Prays Before Shocking Pictures of Abby & Libby Shown In Court
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 0:06Speaker 2: The Delphi double murder suspect bows his head and praise
- 0:12Speaker 2: before photos of Little Abbey thirteen and Liberty fourteen are
- 0:18Speaker 2: displayed before the girrars the girls nude, Simmy Clyde and murdered.
- 0:27Speaker 3: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
- 0:30Speaker 3: being with us.
- 0:30Speaker 4: When did you get into town? I mean it's picturesque,
- 0:33Speaker 4: it's beautiful. Everybody's super friendly.
- 0:36Speaker 3: You're talking about Delphi, Indiana.
- 0:39Speaker 5: It was supposed to be a walk in the wood
- 0:40Speaker 5: shared by two friends, Abby Williams and Lebby Jerman. Went
- 0:43Speaker 5: to this hiking trail on your Delphi's monin high Bridge.
- 0:46Speaker 4: But there's no way you sign that bridge if you're
- 0:49Speaker 4: not from there.
- 0:50Speaker 5: When the girls didn't return to the spot where they
- 0:52Speaker 5: were supposed to be picked up, their families knew something
- 0:55Speaker 5: was wrong.
- 0:55Speaker 6: They thought maybe the girls were hurt.
- 0:57Speaker 3: That bridge is treacherous, and they never thought they would
- 1:02Speaker 3: hear that the girls were murdered.
- 1:05Speaker 5: Carol County Shriff's Deputy Darien gen Coola, the first deputy
- 1:08Speaker 5: to arrive at the scene, said he was called to
- 1:10Speaker 5: the area of Deer Creek because they had been told
- 1:12Speaker 5: members of a search party found something, possibly bodies. Gen
- 1:16Speaker 5: Coola says there were multiple people in the area when
- 1:18Speaker 5: he saw a multi colored shirt and a shoe in
- 1:20Speaker 5: the water. He said when he first saw the bodies
- 1:22Speaker 5: of Abbey and Libby, one was new, the other was clothed.
- 1:25Speaker 5: Gencola said he did not perform life saving measures on
- 1:28Speaker 5: the girls because it was apparent they were deceased.
- 1:31Speaker 2: Joining us an investigative reporter who has been there in
- 1:36Speaker 2: the courtroom, Barbara McDonald joining us from Delphi. A documentary
- 1:43Speaker 2: producer and co host of Down the Hill podcast. Barbara,
- 1:47Speaker 2: thank you so much for being with us. Barbara, so
- 1:51Speaker 2: many bombshells in that courtroom. I want to start with
- 1:55Speaker 2: the fact that now we know why the girls clothes
- 2:00Speaker 2: clothing was soaked, and yesterday, Barbara, I couldn't figure out
- 2:04Speaker 2: why did one person say a T shirt in a tree?
- 2:09Speaker 2: Now I know, please explain.
- 2:12Speaker 7: Yeah. So, we heard from several of the crime scene
- 2:15Speaker 7: investigators who arrived and described finding the clothing of the
- 2:21Speaker 7: girls in the creek. There were about three different areas
- 2:25Speaker 7: where the clothing was in the creek, and two of
- 2:28Speaker 7: those areas the clothing was sort of stuck on debris
- 2:32Speaker 7: in the creek.
- 2:33Speaker 3: The hoodie, the gray hoodie.
- 2:34Speaker 7: That Abby had been wearing that had belonged to Kelsey Jerman.
- 2:39Speaker 7: We saw Abby wearing that in that snapchat image that
- 2:42Speaker 7: Libby posted of the girls before their abduction that was
- 2:45Speaker 7: submerged in the creek. All of the clothing that was
- 2:49Speaker 7: collected from the creek was inside out, including Abby's jeans,
- 2:54Speaker 7: Libby's tied eye T shirt, that gray hoodie, two socks,
- 2:59Speaker 7: one black pink, and then we heard that the girls
- 3:05Speaker 7: were found. Libby was completely nude and Abby was wearing
- 3:09Speaker 7: Libby's jeans and hoodie along with a gray sports Spra
- 3:14Speaker 7: that we believe belonged to Abby. And Abby also had
- 3:18Speaker 7: her shoes on when she was found those converse sneakers
- 3:22Speaker 7: we saw in that same snapchat image Nancy.
- 3:25Speaker 2: And joining us from the courthouse there in Delphi. Joining
- 3:28Speaker 2: us from Delphi is Barbara MacDonald. I want to talk
- 3:31Speaker 2: about the significance Barbara, as to why the girls' clothes
- 3:37Speaker 2: were soaked. Why when their bodies were found well after
- 3:42Speaker 2: the murders, their clothing was still soaked. Were they forced
- 3:48Speaker 2: to wade across the creek?
- 3:50Speaker 8: That is the.
- 3:51Speaker 7: Theory from the state that Richard allen forced these girls
- 3:55Speaker 7: off the bridge down the hill to a secluded area
- 3:59Speaker 7: on the south side of the creek, but then was
- 4:02Speaker 7: interrupted during that attack, that he intended to have his
- 4:06Speaker 7: way with these girls down at the bottom of the hill,
- 4:09Speaker 7: but was interrupted and then forced them to cross the
- 4:13Speaker 7: creek over onto Ron Logan's property where they were killed.
- 4:17Speaker 7: At the scene where they were found, the images that
- 4:20Speaker 7: we found also showed large amounts of blood at that scene.
- 4:24Speaker 7: But the crime scene investigators described the clothing that Abby
- 4:28Speaker 7: was wearing, all of it, the hoodie, the jeans, as
- 4:32Speaker 7: well as her shoes, all being damp or wet to
- 4:35Speaker 7: the touch, and they said it could not have come
- 4:38Speaker 7: from condensation, It could not have come from being out
- 4:42Speaker 7: in the elements overnight. That it definitely was from the creek.
- 4:46Speaker 7: They also had a lot of that silt and that
- 4:49Speaker 7: sort of dirt that's in the creek and debris on
- 4:52Speaker 7: their clothing as well as for Abby, even though she
- 4:55Speaker 7: was found wearing her shoes, they did show some images
- 4:59Speaker 7: of her feet at her shoes had been removed, her
- 5:02Speaker 7: feet were dirty, had some of that filthy sort of
- 5:05Speaker 7: sandy dirt on her feet as well as some leaf debris,
- 5:10Speaker 7: So it certainly appears that at some point Abbey's shoes
- 5:13Speaker 7: were off and then put back on her.
- 5:15Speaker 2: I know this may seem obsessive, Barbera, but if you
- 5:18Speaker 2: don't mind, I'd like to hear what you said again
- 5:21Speaker 2: regarding the discovery of the clothes, their condition, who was wearing,
- 5:25Speaker 2: what where the clothes were, and then I'm going to
- 5:30Speaker 2: go forward to the actual scene, the blood soaked earth,
- 5:34Speaker 2: and my theory that the scene was staged.
- 5:37Speaker 3: Let's start with the clothes again.
- 5:38Speaker 2: If you don't mind, Barbara, please go ahead.
- 5:40Speaker 9: No, not at all.
- 5:41Speaker 7: So the clothing items that were found in the creek,
- 5:43Speaker 7: there were three different areas where the clothing was found,
- 5:47Speaker 7: all within the same general area, but perhaps about ten
- 5:50Speaker 7: feet apart each of those three areas. Two of the
- 5:54Speaker 7: areas that clothing was actually stuck on debris and was
- 5:58Speaker 7: visible from the surface of the water. The gray hoodie
- 6:01Speaker 7: that you see Abby wearing right there in that image
- 6:05Speaker 7: was found submerged in the creek. All of the clothing
- 6:09Speaker 7: that was in the creek was inside out, and all
- 6:12Speaker 7: of those items were wet. All of those items had
- 6:15Speaker 7: that silty sandy debris from the creek is how the
- 6:19Speaker 7: crime scene investigator described it, as well as some leaf material.
- 6:24Speaker 7: And then, as I mentioned, Libby or Abby's feet rather
- 6:27Speaker 7: under her shoes was dirty. There was signs that she
- 6:31Speaker 7: had taken the shoes off at some point, or that
- 6:34Speaker 7: someone had, and she had walked perhaps a little ways
- 6:37Speaker 7: without any shoes on her feet, and then the shoes
- 6:40Speaker 7: were put back on. I could only see one of
- 6:43Speaker 7: her shoes in the images shown in court yesterday. That
- 6:46Speaker 7: shoe was not tied and the tongue appeared to be
- 6:50Speaker 7: pulled out, as if you were taking it off or
- 6:53Speaker 7: putting it back on your foot.
- 6:55Speaker 2: To Cheryl McCollum, the director of the Cold Case Research
- 6:58Speaker 2: Institute and star of the Zone seven podcast, Cheryl, the picture,
- 7:07Speaker 2: the picture in my mind.
- 7:10Speaker 3: Of these clothes.
- 7:13Speaker 2: Covered in dirt, the one shoe, the Nike shoe, with
- 7:18Speaker 2: the clothes in the creek. You know, Cheryl, I remember
- 7:23Speaker 2: my first car jack murder case. I remember it like
- 7:26Speaker 2: I tried it yesterday. But the image that almost not
- 7:31Speaker 2: quite choked me up in front of the jury was
- 7:33Speaker 2: a neighbor ran out. The victim was a teen boy
- 7:38Speaker 2: and he was shot in his front his mom's front
- 7:40Speaker 2: yard where he lived and the perp took off in
- 7:43Speaker 2: the car, and the neighbor, hearing a commotion, ran out
- 7:49Speaker 2: with a pillow off of his own bed and.
- 7:52Speaker 3: Went and put it under the victim's head. The victim
- 7:55Speaker 3: was already dead. He was shot in my head.
- 7:58Speaker 2: But when I saw the crime seen photo for the
- 8:00Speaker 2: first time, I hadn't investigated it yet.
- 8:03Speaker 3: I'm like, why is the victim of a pillow under
- 8:05Speaker 3: his head in the driveway. And then I went and
- 8:10Speaker 3: interviewed the.
- 8:10Speaker 2: Neighbor and I found out that poignant moment where the
- 8:15Speaker 2: victim is.
- 8:16Speaker 3: Dead and he's putting his head on a pillow in
- 8:19Speaker 3: the driveway.
- 8:22Speaker 2: That photo. And I know he's seen a lot of
- 8:24Speaker 2: horrific photos in the courtroom over the last two days
- 8:26Speaker 2: of the victims. But the image Cheryl McCollum of these
- 8:31Speaker 2: little girls clothes having been forced to strip, wet and
- 8:37Speaker 2: filthy in the creek.
- 8:40Speaker 3: Is so upsetting and poignant to me.
- 8:43Speaker 2: I can't really identify how wrong this is, Cheryl Nancy.
- 8:50Speaker 4: What it says to me is time was taken, more
- 8:54Speaker 4: time than maybe they originally salt. In a thing like this,
- 8:58Speaker 4: It's hard to take wet clothes off, much less put
- 9:01Speaker 4: them back on. If anybody's ever fallen into water and
- 9:05Speaker 4: tried to take what gen golf, it's tough, but to
- 9:09Speaker 4: turn back around and try to put them back on,
- 9:11Speaker 4: you would have to struggle. Even if those genes were
- 9:14Speaker 4: a little too big for you. The fact that they
- 9:16Speaker 4: were unbuttoned and unzipped tells me Abby didn't hide that way.
- 9:22Speaker 4: You know, I think that was done again at the
- 9:25Speaker 4: murder scene. So if you take it step by step
- 9:29Speaker 4: the way Barbara has laid this out so beautifully, you
- 9:32Speaker 4: can see again, like we talked about yesterday, these breadcrumbs
- 9:36Speaker 4: of evidence, where you know where it started, you know
- 9:40Speaker 4: where it ended, and you know the time that it took.
- 9:45Speaker 2: Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University,
- 9:50Speaker 2: author of Blood Beneath My Feet on amazon As, started
- 9:53Speaker 2: a hitting new series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan
- 9:57Speaker 2: Joe Scott.
- 9:58Speaker 3: We keep referring to the fact that.
- 10:00Speaker 2: Libby was nude and Abby had on Libby's clothing. Well,
- 10:05Speaker 2: at some point Abby was nude too. Abby was forced
- 10:09Speaker 2: to strip as well. So I'm going to get to
- 10:12Speaker 2: the fact that we don't have any DNA from the perp,
- 10:15Speaker 2: the alleged purp yet. But Joe Scott, I would like
- 10:19Speaker 2: you to help me analyze what Barbara has told us,
- 10:24Speaker 2: because I am telling you in every sentence that she conveyed,
- 10:28Speaker 2: which has just come out in the courtroom, there is
- 10:31Speaker 2: probitive value.
- 10:32Speaker 3: Each thing proves something to me. The fact that the.
- 10:36Speaker 2: Clothing was apart but in three separate areas, the fact
- 10:41Speaker 2: that some of it was down the stream. Obviously he
- 10:44Speaker 2: was trying to get rid of the clothing by throwing it.
- 10:47Speaker 2: Or did the girl strip there and then forced to
- 10:51Speaker 2: a secluded area. We know that they were barefoot. Why
- 10:54Speaker 2: were they barefoot? We know that their clothing was still
- 10:57Speaker 2: soaked by the time their bodies were found.
- 11:00Speaker 3: Tell me what this tells you, Joe Scott.
- 11:04Speaker 10: I think that the idea of the clothing being separated
- 11:07Speaker 10: out over an area, this goes to a pattern with
- 11:10Speaker 10: this fellow. Let me expand on that. I think that
- 11:14Speaker 10: for each item that's there, there's a potential he was
- 11:17Speaker 10: throwing these items in front of these children, one by
- 11:21Speaker 10: one into the creek. Imagine how menacing that is when
- 11:25Speaker 10: you begin to think about your watching these young girls
- 11:28Speaker 10: being humiliated relative to exposure of their bodies to this
- 11:34Speaker 10: creepy guy that's out there in the woods, not to
- 11:37Speaker 10: mention one another out in the open, and all the
- 11:41Speaker 10: while it's a matter of control. He has a pattern
- 11:44Speaker 10: of menacing Nancy. And if we could bring the camera
- 11:47Speaker 10: back up, let me show you something else here, the
- 11:50Speaker 10: idea that they had a live forty caliber round at
- 11:55Speaker 10: the scene that had been cycled through a weapon. Again,
- 11:58Speaker 10: that goes to menacing. You're going to push these girls
- 12:02Speaker 10: to do whatever you want them to do, and then afterwards, afterwards,
- 12:08Speaker 10: you're going to redress bodies. So you've got all these
- 12:11Speaker 10: bits of evidence that are spread about. I don't think
- 12:13Speaker 10: that these are random in any way. I think they
- 12:16Speaker 10: were used to leverage these girls doing whatever he wanted
- 12:20Speaker 10: to do. People talk about how it was an unusually
- 12:22Speaker 10: warm day. Let me tell you what what and warm
- 12:25Speaker 10: at water? That water will get your attention. That time
- 12:28Speaker 10: of year up there, it's freezing. So you talk about
- 12:31Speaker 10: debasing and humiliating, that's only a part of it.
- 12:33Speaker 2: Doctor Bethany Marshall with US, renowned psycho analyst joining us
- 12:36Speaker 2: out of la author of deal Breaker. You can see
- 12:39Speaker 2: her on Peacock or find her at Doctor Bethany Marshall
- 12:41Speaker 2: dot com Doctor Bethany, two thoughts.
- 12:44Speaker 3: You know, a gun makes a big man little and
- 12:47Speaker 3: a little man.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Big, and that's just what he was doing. As Joe
- 12:51Speaker 2: Scott said, he was anacing. But think about it, doctor Bethany.
- 12:55Speaker 2: Humiliating these two prepubescent girls one thirteen, one's fourteen, I
- 13:02Speaker 2: mean they look.
- 13:02Speaker 3: Like little girls.
- 13:04Speaker 2: Humiliating them by making them strip a in front of
- 13:09Speaker 2: a guy, a grown man they hardly know the pharmacy
- 13:12Speaker 2: tic for Pete's sake, and out in public in the.
- 13:16Speaker 6: Woods, Nancy, I can imagine these port little girls screaming
- 13:20Speaker 6: and crying and just so distraught, Nancy. Where this all
- 13:23Speaker 6: begins for me? And I love Joe Scott. Morgan's use
- 13:26Speaker 6: of the word menacing is when he says down the
- 13:29Speaker 6: Hill that if you listen to his tone of voice,
- 13:33Speaker 6: it's dripping with contempt hatred. You are two bad little girls.
- 13:38Speaker 7: You belong to me.
- 13:39Speaker 6: If anybody watching this program has ever been an abuse
- 13:42Speaker 6: of relationship, they will recognize that tone of voice. He
- 13:46Speaker 6: makes them wade through the river. I do agree with
- 13:50Speaker 6: the panel he is trying to have control over them
- 13:53Speaker 6: in every way possible, but also to degrade to human
- 14:00Speaker 6: miliate and to force them into sexual submission is really
- 14:03Speaker 6: behind a lot of these crimes. And in terms of
- 14:05Speaker 6: throwing the clothing in the creek, he was wanting.
- 14:08Speaker 9: To scare them.
- 14:09Speaker 6: It's like, don't run away, your clothing is not here anymore.
- 14:12Speaker 6: And the fact that Nancy he put the clothing back on,
- 14:16Speaker 6: it was like he was preserving the bodies to come
- 14:18Speaker 6: back later so he could rape them again.
- 14:21Speaker 9: Richard Allen's defense team claims the audio and video clips
- 14:24Speaker 9: found on Libby German's phone that they receive from the
- 14:27Speaker 9: state have been enhanced and the sounds have been put
- 14:30Speaker 9: on a loop repeating a phrase spoken by either Libby
- 14:33Speaker 9: or Abby, as well as an audio clip of a
- 14:36Speaker 9: man speaking. The defense claims those enhancements are investigatory tools
- 14:41Speaker 9: and that interpreting the words and sounds on the enhanced
- 14:43Speaker 9: video requires a completely subjective analysis.
- 14:47Speaker 3: I bet they are trying to get that audio suppressed.
- 14:50Speaker 3: Now we know why.
- 14:52Speaker 2: Joining me from Delphi, Barbara McDonald, who hasn't missed a
- 14:56Speaker 2: word of testimony, Barbara McDonald. Isn't it true that when
- 15:00Speaker 2: the audio is enhanced, because remember Libby is walking along
- 15:05Speaker 2: on gravel.
- 15:07Speaker 3: Then you can't. The wind is blowing.
- 15:12Speaker 2: She's out there in the woods coming down off that
- 15:15Speaker 2: trestle bridge, which is really high up. If you take
- 15:18Speaker 2: a good look at it, it's up there with treetops.
- 15:20Speaker 2: It's very high up.
- 15:22Speaker 3: We visited it.
- 15:23Speaker 2: It's way up there. So she's walking along the gravel
- 15:26Speaker 2: off this trestle bridge. If you enhance that audio, multiple
- 15:33Speaker 2: ear witnesses state that you hear one of the girls
- 15:37Speaker 2: saying words to the effect of does he have a
- 15:41Speaker 2: gun or gun?
- 15:44Speaker 3: He's still there? Or is he still there?
- 15:48Speaker 1: That's why they don't.
- 15:50Speaker 3: Want it enhanced.
- 15:52Speaker 7: I listened to that video several times, Nancy and I
- 15:56Speaker 7: really struggled to make out what exactly being said. In
- 16:01Speaker 7: addition to the gravel and the wind that you mentioned,
- 16:04Speaker 7: Abby or rather Libby, when she's making that video, is
- 16:07Speaker 7: moving her phone up and down almost like this, and
- 16:11Speaker 7: so you don't have one steady shot of the man.
- 16:15Speaker 7: You definitely see at the beginning of the video that
- 16:17Speaker 7: he is further behind Abby. Abby is looking down at
- 16:21Speaker 7: the railroad ties. We all know it's a very treacherous
- 16:24Speaker 7: bridge to cross, and you need to pay attention to
- 16:27Speaker 7: where you're putting your feet, and she appears to be
- 16:30Speaker 7: doing that to me, it sounded like she was asking
- 16:34Speaker 7: Libby if he's still there, if he's still behind her,
- 16:38Speaker 7: And towards the end of the video, he absolutely makes
- 16:41Speaker 7: up much of that ground and is much closer to
- 16:44Speaker 7: her at the end of the video than he is
- 16:47Speaker 7: at the beginning of that forty two second video. The
- 16:50Speaker 7: video ends right after he tells them down the hill.
- 16:54Speaker 7: We did hear testimony and saw pictures of a slide
- 16:58Speaker 7: area where the leaves were disturbed at the south end
- 17:02Speaker 7: of that bridge. Going down that hill, it is very steep.
- 17:05Speaker 7: I have walked that area myself. I went down on
- 17:08Speaker 7: my butt, So you could imagine that perhaps the girls
- 17:11Speaker 7: did the same thing.
- 17:13Speaker 2: Would that disturbance of the leaves, Barbara MacDonald be consistent
- 17:18Speaker 2: with the girls going down on that side and then
- 17:20Speaker 2: being forced to weigh across the creek and their bodies
- 17:23Speaker 2: being found on the other side.
- 17:24Speaker 7: Yeah, So there were two hills they would have gone down.
- 17:27Speaker 7: The first part of the hill was described as perhaps
- 17:30Speaker 7: fifteen or twenty feet down, and then there's a gravel
- 17:34Speaker 7: driveway that's a private driveway belonging to one of the
- 17:38Speaker 7: homeowners on that south side of the creek, and then
- 17:41Speaker 7: there's another hill also about fifteen or twenty feet that
- 17:45Speaker 7: they would have gone down to be in what was
- 17:47Speaker 7: described as sort of a floodplain area closer to the creek,
- 17:52Speaker 7: and the state's theory is that that's where Richard Allen
- 17:55Speaker 7: was intending to have his way with these girls. Those
- 17:59Speaker 7: are the prosecutor words from his opening statement, and that
- 18:03Speaker 7: he was interrupted there perhaps by that homeowner who would
- 18:08Speaker 7: have been driving along that private drive about three point
- 18:11Speaker 7: thirty that afternoon, and then therefore crossed the creek with
- 18:15Speaker 7: the girls onto Ron Logan's property where they were killed.
- 18:18Speaker 2: Orba McDonald, tell me again your impressions of what you
- 18:24Speaker 2: could hear.
- 18:25Speaker 3: Did you hear the enhanced version or not.
- 18:29Speaker 7: I don't believe I heard the enhanced version. I heard
- 18:31Speaker 7: the original version. You could make out the down the
- 18:35Speaker 7: hill spoken by the man. There is only one man
- 18:38Speaker 7: in the video that I saw that forty two second video.
- 18:42Speaker 7: But I really struggled to hear what I believe Abby
- 18:46Speaker 7: says to Libby about is he still there. I really
- 18:51Speaker 7: listened for the word gun. I even closed my eyes
- 18:54Speaker 7: and listened to the video a couple of times, trying
- 18:57Speaker 7: to really make out what was spoken, and it is
- 19:00Speaker 7: just not very clear. Certainly wasn't clear to me. I
- 19:05Speaker 7: think it is open to interpretation, which is why I
- 19:08Speaker 7: think the defense wants the jury to be able to
- 19:11Speaker 7: hear those words and make up their own mind about.
- 19:14Speaker 2: What is said.
- 19:22Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 19:26Speaker 2: My question is, Barbara, according to others that have heard
- 19:30Speaker 2: the audio, they can make out the word gun and
- 19:34Speaker 2: words to the effect of he has a gun?
- 19:37Speaker 3: Does he have a gun?
- 19:38Speaker 2: It's really hard to make it out other than hearing
- 19:42Speaker 2: what you believe you heard to be is he still
- 19:45Speaker 2: there or he is still there?
- 19:48Speaker 1: Could you hear the.
- 19:49Speaker 3: Girl speaking at all? Other than that one comment?
- 19:53Speaker 7: You hear Libby saying something to the man. It sounds
- 19:58Speaker 7: like at some point before the video begin he gave
- 20:01Speaker 7: them some sort of instructions and she is standing there
- 20:04Speaker 7: at the end of the bridge saying there's no place
- 20:07Speaker 7: to go, there's no path, and that's when he says,
- 20:11Speaker 7: down the hill, and that's right as you can hear
- 20:15Speaker 7: the rustling of them perhaps beginning that descent down the hill,
- 20:20Speaker 7: and that's when the video cuts out and you don't
- 20:22Speaker 7: see or hear anything else.
- 20:24Speaker 2: Okay, So you, Barbara, were able to make out. We
- 20:29Speaker 2: usually hear with the naked eye, but with the naked
- 20:31Speaker 2: ear un enhanced, you hear is it Libby or I'd
- 20:37Speaker 2: be saying there's no path, there's no place to go.
- 20:40Speaker 3: Who do you think it's Libby saying that? And then
- 20:43Speaker 3: after that you hear the guy on the bridge say
- 20:47Speaker 3: down the hill?
- 20:49Speaker 2: And then Barbara, Yes, the state is bringing in evidence
- 20:53Speaker 2: that there were disturbed beliefs down the hill.
- 20:56Speaker 7: Yes, And I had heard that previously from a member
- 20:59Speaker 7: of Libby's family who searched that south end of the
- 21:03Speaker 7: bridge that he described seeing an area that he said
- 21:07Speaker 7: looked to him like somebody slid on their butt down
- 21:09Speaker 7: the hill. And that's sort of how the crime scene
- 21:13Speaker 7: investigators described it. It would have been very difficult to
- 21:16Speaker 7: walk down that hill, especially if you were scared or
- 21:20Speaker 7: being forced or in a rush. When I went down
- 21:23Speaker 7: that hill, it was very steep, very slippery because of
- 21:27Speaker 7: all the leaves that are in the area, and I
- 21:29Speaker 7: scooted it on my bottom down most of that hill.
- 21:33Speaker 7: Once you get closer to the bottom, it does even
- 21:36Speaker 7: out a bit before you get to that gravel driveway.
- 21:40Speaker 7: But then there's another hill also about fifteen or twenty
- 21:43Speaker 7: feet down on the other side of that gravel driveway
- 21:47Speaker 7: to get down to the area near the creek.
- 21:50Speaker 9: Richard Allen's defense team foulews emotion, asking the judge to
- 21:53Speaker 9: prevent the jury from seeing or hearing the recordings that
- 21:57Speaker 9: were turned over to the defense. The defense team claimed
- 22:00Speaker 9: the audio and video the state turned over to them
- 22:02Speaker 9: has been manipulated by enhancing the audio and looping the recording.
- 22:07Speaker 3: We are at the courthouse bringing you the latest as
- 22:11Speaker 3: the Delphi murderers trial goes on. And with me from
- 22:15Speaker 3: Delphi is Barbara McDonald. To the rest of the panel.
- 22:18Speaker 3: I'll bring you right in, but I want to get
- 22:19Speaker 3: all the facts from her.
- 22:21Speaker 2: Barbara, the defense is trying so hard to keep this
- 22:26Speaker 2: video and audio away from the jury, and now we
- 22:30Speaker 2: know why. The more I question you, the more I learn.
- 22:34Speaker 2: Now you're telling me that you hear Libby stating, as
- 22:40Speaker 2: he's obviously holding them a gunpoint from what others say
- 22:45Speaker 2: they hear reference to a gun on the audio telling
- 22:48Speaker 2: them to go down into the woods off the trestle bridge.
- 22:53Speaker 2: Libby says there's no place to go, there's no path,
- 22:55Speaker 2: and he says down the hill now let's connect this.
- 22:59Speaker 2: Then the state is introducing evidence where the leaves are disturbed.
- 23:02Speaker 2: Do you want the very same path and you ended
- 23:04Speaker 2: up on your rear end going down on your rear end.
- 23:08Speaker 3: We then know they confronted the creek and then.
- 23:10Speaker 2: For whatever reason, they were forced to wade across the creek,
- 23:14Speaker 2: the clothes completely soaked. I want to ask you to
- 23:18Speaker 2: think back, is there anything else that you could make
- 23:23Speaker 2: out on that audio or video, anything at all? Because
- 23:28Speaker 2: I've already learned they're saying there's no place to go,
- 23:30Speaker 2: there's no path, the possibility that they are saying he's
- 23:33Speaker 2: got a gun them stating is he's still there.
- 23:37Speaker 1: So we're learning a lot.
- 23:40Speaker 2: Is there any other utterance that you could make out, Barbara, No,
- 23:44Speaker 2: I couldn't.
- 23:44Speaker 7: And you don't see a gun in the video. If
- 23:48Speaker 7: he is showing one or has previously shown one to them,
- 23:52Speaker 7: that is not obvious in the video. But because of
- 23:55Speaker 7: the way that Libby is trying to make this recording
- 23:59Speaker 7: without him being aware that she's making the recording, her
- 24:02Speaker 7: phone is in her hand and she's motioning with that hand,
- 24:06Speaker 7: and so a lot of times when the phone kind
- 24:09Speaker 7: of comes up and shows the bridge, scene before she
- 24:13Speaker 7: moves her hand back down. The man is obscured behind Abby,
- 24:18Speaker 7: and so you don't really have a lot of great
- 24:21Speaker 7: video of him, even though that video is forty two
- 24:25Speaker 7: seconds long. It's really only bits of that video that
- 24:30Speaker 7: show him at all. And several of the times that
- 24:32Speaker 7: the camera comes back up, Libby or Abby rather is
- 24:36Speaker 7: completely blocking him from view. But he definitely during the
- 24:40Speaker 7: course of that video makes up a lot of ground.
- 24:43Speaker 7: Whereas he's further away from the girls at the beginning
- 24:46Speaker 7: of the video, by the end of the video, he
- 24:48Speaker 7: is caught up and is much much closer, within a
- 24:51Speaker 7: few feet of the girls, so.
- 24:53Speaker 3: Is absolutely pursuing them. When does the video audio end?
- 25:00Speaker 3: What's the last thing you hear?
- 25:01Speaker 7: You hear the rustling of he says down the hill,
- 25:05Speaker 7: and then it appears that they start to go down
- 25:09Speaker 7: that hill in that area where those leaves were disturbed,
- 25:12Speaker 7: and that's when it gets sort of staticky. You hear
- 25:15Speaker 7: a bunch of other noise, and then it just cuts out,
- 25:18Speaker 7: and that's the end of the video.
- 25:20Speaker 6: And that.
- 25:21Speaker 3: Was the end.
- 25:22Speaker 2: That's the last known utterances of those two little girls.
- 25:28Speaker 2: That was near the end of their lives, before they
- 25:31Speaker 2: were forced to wade across that creek, strip out in
- 25:36Speaker 2: the open, and then their throats were slashed. Cheryl McCollum,
- 25:43Speaker 2: you've said all along that you thought the had a
- 25:47Speaker 2: knife or a gun in his pocket or else.
- 25:50Speaker 1: Why walk that way?
- 25:51Speaker 3: He walked with his hands stuck in his pockets all
- 25:53Speaker 3: the way down that bridge.
- 25:54Speaker 1: Correct.
- 25:55Speaker 4: Not only do I think he had a weapon, I
- 25:57Speaker 4: think he brandished it. I think that's how he gained
- 26:00Speaker 4: control of the two of them without them screaming. I
- 26:03Speaker 4: think that's why they did exactly what he said, because
- 26:06Speaker 4: you know, they probably believed if we do what he
- 26:08Speaker 4: tells us to do, he won't hurt us. But if
- 26:11Speaker 4: you look at him on that bridge, and I've been
- 26:14Speaker 4: at that bridge, my sister went on that bridge, there's
- 26:17Speaker 4: no way you don't have your hands out, just making
- 26:21Speaker 4: sure you keep your balance because there is no rain,
- 26:23Speaker 4: right and if you were to sor I mean.
- 26:25Speaker 3: He's sixty feet up in the air, you're up there
- 26:27Speaker 3: with the treetops.
- 26:28Speaker 2: Philip Dubay joining me, high profile lawyer out of LA
- 26:32Speaker 2: He is with the Public Defender's Office.
- 26:34Speaker 3: What does that mean?
- 26:35Speaker 2: That means he's tried a lot of cases, a lot
- 26:38Speaker 2: of cases that he wanted to try, and a lot
- 26:40Speaker 2: of cases, and Judge shoved down his throat that he
- 26:42Speaker 2: had to try.
- 26:45Speaker 3: Philip, do bay.
- 26:46Speaker 2: I want to quickly touch on the legal aspect, the
- 26:49Speaker 2: legal argument the defense is making that they do not
- 26:53Speaker 2: want this tape enhanced.
- 26:55Speaker 3: I'm sure they don't, Philip. Do they have a leg
- 26:58Speaker 3: to stand on?
- 26:59Speaker 7: No, they don't.
- 27:00Speaker 11: I mean, let's be honest here. The evidence against mister
- 27:02Speaker 11: Allen is compelling. I'll give you that. I'll give everybody
- 27:05Speaker 11: involved in the prosecution that. But to be fair, I
- 27:07Speaker 11: think their only hope at this point is to chip
- 27:09Speaker 11: away at what the state's got and try to find
- 27:12Speaker 11: legal grounds to exclude it all. And I will tell you, Nancy,
- 27:16Speaker 11: there is no scientific reliability on voice comparison, on voice analysis,
- 27:21Speaker 11: and I don't believe it has ever been held to
- 27:23Speaker 11: be scientifically reliable by the US Supreme Court the new
- 27:27Speaker 11: process Deby.
- 27:28Speaker 3: Did I ask you about making a voice comparison?
- 27:32Speaker 2: No?
- 27:32Speaker 3: I did not.
- 27:33Speaker 2: I know you want to talk about it because that
- 27:35Speaker 2: behooves the defense. But what I'm asking you is about
- 27:40Speaker 2: the enhancement. The defense does not want the jury to
- 27:44Speaker 2: hear an enhance diversion I mean Barbara McDonald, for Pete's sake,
- 27:47Speaker 2: had to close their eyes and straining to hear. But
- 27:50Speaker 2: if they enhance that audio video, it may be very
- 27:54Speaker 2: very clear, and the defense doesn't want that.
- 27:56Speaker 3: Now, if this were you, how would you fight that enhancement?
- 28:00Speaker 11: Would say that a lacks foundation and authentication that even
- 28:03Speaker 11: if it is enhanced. You don't have anybody coming into
- 28:06Speaker 11: churd to say that that enhanced version sounds just like
- 28:09Speaker 11: Richard Allen, Who do you really have? Who are they
- 28:12Speaker 11: going to put on to do that comparison? And you know,
- 28:15Speaker 11: the standard is not that the recording is good enough
- 28:19Speaker 11: passes muster. You know, it's you know, good enough for me.
- 28:22Speaker 11: That's not the standard. It has to be somehow scientifically
- 28:25Speaker 11: reliable because jury's put a lot of value, they put
- 28:29Speaker 11: a lot of importance on this type of evidence because
- 28:31Speaker 11: it comes through the court as having this imperimeter, if
- 28:34Speaker 11: you will, of gospel truth. So unless and untwol you
- 28:38Speaker 11: have some scientific foundation for it, an authentication, it absolutely
- 28:43Speaker 11: should be excluded from evidence.
- 28:51Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
- 28:56Speaker 8: Describing a photo of Libyan Abbey laying less than five
- 28:59Speaker 8: feet apart, their feet angled towards each other. Fourteen year
- 29:02Speaker 8: old Libby is nude, her skin pale as porcelain, stained
- 29:05Speaker 8: with blood on her hands, thigh, chest, throat, and face.
- 29:08Speaker 8: She's covered with twigs which criss crossed at her throat
- 29:11Speaker 8: and one heavy bough that lay lengthwise across her left side.
- 29:15Speaker 8: Thirteen year old Abbey is laying to Libby's right. She
- 29:17Speaker 8: is dressed in some of Libby's clothing as well as
- 29:20Speaker 8: her own. Sergeant Jason Page says her genes appear damp.
- 29:24Speaker 2: Joining me an all star panel to make sense of
- 29:26Speaker 2: what we are learning and to dissect and analyze the evidence, which.
- 29:29Speaker 3: Is crucial in this case.
- 29:30Speaker 2: Barbara McDonnell with me, investigative reporter, documentary producer there in Delphi.
- 29:35Speaker 2: This is critical, Barbara, Now, isn't it true that one
- 29:41Speaker 2: of the girls has dried blood running horizont Think of
- 29:47Speaker 2: her standing up. She has dried blood running from the
- 29:53Speaker 2: inner thigh horizontally across her leg to the outer thigh.
- 29:59Speaker 3: Explain, Yeah, so in the.
- 30:01Speaker 7: Photo you definitely saw an area on Libby's right thigh
- 30:06Speaker 7: where it looked like there were six or eight drops
- 30:09Speaker 7: of blood. That's how the crime scene investigator described them
- 30:13Speaker 7: as being drops of blood. And then travel marks is
- 30:17Speaker 7: how he worded it, moving from the inner thigh to
- 30:20Speaker 7: the outer thigh, making straight lines across her thigh. There
- 30:26Speaker 7: were about six or eight of them, as I said,
- 30:28Speaker 7: and several of the reporters that I was sitting with,
- 30:31Speaker 7: we were trying to imagine what position Libby would have
- 30:35Speaker 7: been in when those marks were made, how that would
- 30:38Speaker 7: have been done. Again, it was described as drops of
- 30:42Speaker 7: blood with travel marks traveling to the outside of her thigh.
- 30:46Speaker 7: Each of those travel marks maybe five or six inches
- 30:50Speaker 7: in length.
- 30:51Speaker 3: That is so significant.
- 30:54Speaker 2: Barbara, guys, Barbara McDonald just straight out of the court room,
- 30:58Speaker 2: and what a day it has been, and that Delphi
- 31:01Speaker 2: Murderer's trial. Let's analyze what Barbara has just told us.
- 31:04Speaker 2: Josct Morgan, clearly, this is a problem for the defense.
- 31:11Speaker 2: The bodies were staged because that blood, by the rules
- 31:16Speaker 2: of gravity, did not run horizontally.
- 31:20Speaker 3: Across her leg.
- 31:21Speaker 2: She had to be in a position, possibly on her side,
- 31:26Speaker 2: where the blood dropped on her and then it ran down,
- 31:30Speaker 2: and then her body was turned back over and the
- 31:32Speaker 2: blood dried.
- 31:33Speaker 10: And that interesting one, two, three, four, five. What if
- 31:38Speaker 10: it's a point of transfer where the fingertips are super
- 31:42Speaker 10: saturated with blood. You place your hand on the thigh,
- 31:45Speaker 10: perhaps to manipulate the thigh in some way, and then
- 31:49Speaker 10: you go to move the body in this idea of posing,
- 31:52Speaker 10: and of course gravity is going to take over and
- 31:54Speaker 10: it's going to kind of arc away from the initial
- 31:56Speaker 10: point where you touched.
- 31:58Speaker 2: No, because these were not transfer from fingers. These were drops.
- 32:03Speaker 10: Blood, right, I understand that there were drops. So if
- 32:05Speaker 10: you have, like I said, if the fingertips are super
- 32:08Speaker 10: saturated with blood, and even if he's just holding over
- 32:12Speaker 10: like this, you're going to get this falling away, and
- 32:14Speaker 10: it won't fall away much. It's not going to get
- 32:16Speaker 10: He's not. What I'm saying is he's in very close
- 32:18Speaker 10: proximity to it. Maybe they are transfers, maybe they didn't
- 32:22Speaker 10: read them correctly, but we know that there's a robust
- 32:25Speaker 10: amount of blood, so much so that it would track
- 32:27Speaker 10: away when you move the body. It's not just merely
- 32:31Speaker 10: merely a smudge. This is a robust droplet of blood,
- 32:34Speaker 10: and then you would have to have sufficient energy to
- 32:36Speaker 10: get this thing to move. I think that it goes
- 32:38Speaker 10: probably to the manipulation of the body, maybe into posing.
- 32:42Speaker 3: Got it.
- 32:42Speaker 2: Barbin McDonald also there were a lot of theories at
- 32:47Speaker 2: the beginning that the girls were killed somewhere else and
- 32:51Speaker 2: then their bodies dumped here. As a matter of fact,
- 32:54Speaker 2: isn't it true, Barbara, that one of the defens's theory,
- 32:56Speaker 2: they've got to scatter shot theory. You like your shoot
- 32:58Speaker 2: the shotgun shells go, the buckshot goes everywhere. That's impossible
- 33:06Speaker 2: because the defense theory is that they were killed somewhere else,
- 33:09Speaker 2: brought by there and dumped And that timeline ascertation would
- 33:14Speaker 2: exclude the defendant if they were killed elsewhere and brought back,
- 33:18Speaker 2: because he can establish his whereabouts later on. So they
- 33:21Speaker 2: want to be able to establish the girls were killed
- 33:24Speaker 2: elsewhere and then brought back, possibly even the next day.
- 33:28Speaker 2: But at the beginning, when the bodies were first found,
- 33:32Speaker 2: there's a lot of speculation the same was quote pristine, No,
- 33:37Speaker 2: the same was not pristine.
- 33:39Speaker 3: Explained, that's right.
- 33:40Speaker 7: There were two very large areas of blood on the
- 33:43Speaker 7: ground away from the bodies. About two feet from the
- 33:48Speaker 7: feet of Abbey and Libby was the largest pool of
- 33:52Speaker 7: blood that the crime scene investigator described as the ground
- 33:55Speaker 7: still being saturated two and three days after the murders.
- 34:00Speaker 7: There was another area where there was a tree to
- 34:04Speaker 7: the right of Abigail, maybe two or three feet from
- 34:07Speaker 7: her body. That's the tree that had the so called
- 34:11Speaker 7: f mark on it. We found out that there were
- 34:14Speaker 7: two areas of blood on that tree, and then just
- 34:18Speaker 7: on the opposite side of the tree from where the
- 34:20Speaker 7: bodies were found was another pool of blood on the ground.
- 34:25Speaker 7: And then as you described, there was a lot of
- 34:28Speaker 7: blood on Libby's body. She had blood on her hands,
- 34:32Speaker 7: she had blood on her chest and her face. She
- 34:35Speaker 7: had blood on her thighs, She had blood on her
- 34:39Speaker 7: right heel and the back of her right calf. Abigail
- 34:43Speaker 7: mostly the blood was in the area of her injury
- 34:47Speaker 7: to her neck. Her hands were clean, her feet had
- 34:50Speaker 7: no blood on them, and it didn't appear that there
- 34:53Speaker 7: was much blood on the front of the clothing that
- 34:57Speaker 7: Abigail was wearing. When they rolled her over. They did
- 35:00Speaker 7: see a lot of blood on the back of her sweatshirt,
- 35:03Speaker 7: and there was another pool of blood under her body.
- 35:06Speaker 7: That's also where they found that second Nike shoe. It
- 35:09Speaker 7: was under Abigail, and then under that shoe was Libby's
- 35:13Speaker 7: cell phone. They described the area where the shoe and
- 35:16Speaker 7: the phone were as being behind the small of her back.
- 35:19Speaker 3: What about the phone? Where was the phone? War or
- 35:22Speaker 3: the phone that made.
- 35:23Speaker 7: This was right under that shoe, and it was face
- 35:26Speaker 7: up and it had a lot of condensation. They said
- 35:28Speaker 7: on the cover. It was obscured by leaves. In the
- 35:33Speaker 7: first image when they removed the shoe, I struggled to
- 35:36Speaker 7: see the phone in that photograph. They moved the leaves
- 35:39Speaker 7: away and then you could see the phone. They also
- 35:42Speaker 7: flipped it over. It had a Harry Potter purple cover
- 35:45Speaker 7: on the phone with the Gryffindor logo or crest on
- 35:49Speaker 7: the back of it. I'm not a fan of the
- 35:50Speaker 7: Harry Potter series, but it was something to do with
- 35:53Speaker 7: the Gryffindor on the back of her phone.
- 35:56Speaker 5: Former Indiana State Police crime scene investigator Dwayne Donsman testified
- 36:00Speaker 5: finding the one piece of evidence linking Richard Allen to
- 36:02Speaker 5: the crime scene, the unspent bullet that prosecutors say has
- 36:06Speaker 5: been cycled through the same six hour model P three
- 36:09Speaker 5: thirty six forty caliber handgun that Alan owned. Dotsman says
- 36:12Speaker 5: he kept seeing a glitter in the leaves near the
- 36:14Speaker 5: bodies and that's where he found the forty caliber cartridge.
- 36:18Speaker 2: Amazing that he thought it was glitter, something shiny and sparkly. Well,
- 36:25Speaker 2: it was a treasure because it's the only hard evidence
- 36:28Speaker 2: the state has right now. Of course, the evidence has
- 36:31Speaker 2: just started. What a day it has been in that
- 36:34Speaker 2: Delphi trial courtroom. To Cheryl McCollum joining me, Cold Case
- 36:38Speaker 2: Investigative Research Institute founder, Cheryl, what about the bullet that
- 36:43Speaker 2: he first thought was glitter in the leaves?
- 36:45Speaker 4: I think the position is critical when you eject that bullet,
- 36:49Speaker 4: when you rack it and it's unstinted, it goes a
- 36:53Speaker 4: little backwards to the right a couple of feet. If
- 36:55Speaker 4: it is between the two bodies, that means it was
- 36:59Speaker 4: aimed at one of them. So when you think about
- 37:02Speaker 4: trying to invote fear, you're clearly trying to make one
- 37:06Speaker 4: of the victims petrified. That takes you to get shot,
- 37:09Speaker 4: but you've got a second one having to watch that.
- 37:11Speaker 2: Philip Dubay joining me, high profile lawyer, a real trial attorney.
- 37:16Speaker 2: He doesn't sit back and read depots in an office.
- 37:19Speaker 2: He's in the courtroom fighting it out. Philip Dubay, this
- 37:23Speaker 2: is very powerful evidence because you know markings on bullets.
- 37:29Speaker 2: It's irrefutable it's like a fingerprint. So if this bullet
- 37:33Speaker 2: came from his gun, he's up the.
- 37:35Speaker 3: Creek without a paddle.
- 37:36Speaker 2: Because the other suspects, and yes, there were other pois
- 37:40Speaker 2: persons of interest which they will use to their benefit,
- 37:43Speaker 2: but none of them had this gun.
- 37:46Speaker 11: I don't see why it's relevant, to be honest with you,
- 37:48Speaker 11: because these girls weren't shot. It would be one thing
- 37:51Speaker 11: if they found a bullet launched in their ribcage or
- 37:53Speaker 11: they found spend shellcasings at the scene. Let's be honest here,
- 37:57Speaker 11: an unspent shewcasing does not a murder. At most, it
- 38:01Speaker 11: prove's presence, that's it. And who's to say that that
- 38:05Speaker 11: show wasn't there before the girls were brought there? So
- 38:08Speaker 11: I don't know how they're going to temporally prove his
- 38:11Speaker 11: connection to the dropping of that bullet, that case thing
- 38:16Speaker 11: at or near the time of the actual double homicide.
- 38:19Speaker 11: So therefore, I think it's temporally and legally irrelevant.
- 38:23Speaker 2: Well that's why Philip Dobay wins all of his cases
- 38:27Speaker 2: because he said that with an absolute straight face. And
- 38:30Speaker 2: actually that's a legitimate argument. How do I know that
- 38:35Speaker 2: Richard Allen hadn't been in those woods before hunting or
- 38:38Speaker 2: shooting or with his gun. This is a single most
- 38:41Speaker 2: critical piece of evidence as of yet, as of tonight,
- 38:46Speaker 2: because it is linking him directly to that scene.
- 38:50Speaker 3: But it's going to have to be argued that it
- 38:53Speaker 3: must be.
- 38:53Speaker 2: Taken in light of all the other circumstances in order
- 38:57Speaker 2: for a state to get a conviction in this case.
- 39:01Speaker 3: We wait as just as unfolds, and.
- 39:03Speaker 2: Reminder we are live at the courthouse bringing you the
- 39:08Speaker 2: latest from the Delphi murderers trial trial. We have all
- 39:11Speaker 2: waited on literally for years for justice for Abbey and Libby,
- 39:16Speaker 2: and now we stop to remember a hero police officer
- 39:21Speaker 2: Logan Medlock, London, p D Kentucky, just twenty six, killed
- 39:26Speaker 2: by a drunk driver in the line of duty, Survived
- 39:29Speaker 2: by a grieving widow, Courtney and a son Brantley, American
- 39:34Speaker 2: hero officer Logan Medlock. Nancy Grace signing off goodbye friend.