The Delphi Murders: The Leak

[00:00:00] Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls as well as suicide. If you're in the United States and you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call 988 for their Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

[00:00:17] The leak of discovery materials and strategy was a pivotal moment in the Delphi case. It was the catalyst that saw defendant Richard Allen's original defense team, Bradley Rosie and Andrew Baldwin, depart the case. Now of course they are fighting to come back on

[00:00:35] and to force Judge Francis Gull off the case saying that she's the one who mishandled things. In January the Indiana Supreme Court will hear both sides. They'll argue who should get to remain. Regardless of which side ends up prevailing, it's fair to say the leak has changed things

[00:00:52] permanently in this case. As a quick recap, Mitchell or Mitch Westerman admitted to being the original leaker. We spoke to Westerman once back in March of this year for our profile on Baldwin. Westerman previously worked as the operation manager for Baldwin's firm and the two were

[00:01:11] personal friends. Baldwin confided things about the case to Westerman because Baldwin admired Westerman's sense of strategy. Our understanding is that those discussions in and of themselves aren't a breach. Lawyers can bounce around ideas with trusted confidence. The problem

[00:01:28] is what Westerman seemingly did with that information. He passed it on to others. He also admitted to visiting Baldwin's office back in August and coming upon the discovery materials in a conference room that he went into to wait for his friend. He snapped photos

[00:01:44] of the images and then leaked them. He admitted that and assigned Affidavit. Westerman passed on those discovery materials to a man we refer to as R to protect his family's privacy. R gave them to a man named Mark, who then sent them to us. Mark quickly realized

[00:02:02] he didn't want to be a part of the leak of graphic images and cooperated with the police. He sent us his communications with R on the condition we'd share the screenshots with law enforcement. As a result of all this, Westerman has since been charged with conversion,

[00:02:16] a misdemeanor. I want to repeat something Anya just said because I think it's important. We're going to be talking a lot in this episode about some of the strategy and case information that Westerman leaked. He got this information because Baldwin wanted to discuss

[00:02:32] strategy with his former colleague. There is nothing wrong with this. It was not a violation of the protective order for Baldwin to ask Westerman's opinion on the case. Given the importance of the leak, we feel that thorough old-fashioned journalism is in order.

[00:02:48] At this time, we can, at the very least, provide more details and clarity to a public that wants answers. We want to do this because there have already been so many rumors and full-on conspiracy theories about this situation. Generally, those seem to fall into two

[00:03:03] categories, favorable to the old defense and unfavorable to the old defense. On the favorable side, we've heard things such as the police or the prosecutor were the ones who really engineered the leak. We suppose in this telling, Westerman must have functioned as a

[00:03:20] sort of double agent, someone willing to harm his own reputation in pursuit of destroying his friend and former colleague Andrew Baldwin. This all seems highly implausible, and it's especially puzzling, given that Westerman signed an affidavit stating exactly how he obtained

[00:03:38] the discovery materials. And he's facing legal consequences for those admissions. In a letter to the court, Brad Rosie also indicated that Baldwin and Westerman talked about case strategy. So no one seems to be disputing the basic facts of what went on.

[00:03:55] It is strange, therefore, that some are determined to take this tack of suggesting that Westerman must have been some sort of a double agent. Suffice to say, we found no evidence for any of those sorts of narratives.

[00:04:08] On the unfavorable side, we've heard many suggest that Baldwin must have ordered Westerman to leak discovery or that the old defense was paying a legion of internet sleuths to leak information and influence the narrative. We've not seen any indications

[00:04:22] that they funded an army of online mercenaries. There are vocal defense supporters who do boast of their connections and interactions with the old defense. But it's our view that they're likely happy to talk about their opinions for free. We can understand why some assume that

[00:04:38] these individuals must be closely associated with the old defense team given the rhetoric and illusions to connections. But we've not seen evidence proving anything. It's important to remember that on the internet, people do lie to seem more important. In addition,

[00:04:54] we certainly have not seen anything indicating that Baldwin told Westerman to leak. An allegation is serious as a lawyer ordering his friend to leak sensitive case materials in violation of a protective order would require solid, irrefutable evidence to get any buy-in from us. Again,

[00:05:12] let me come in here once more and repeat something Anya has said. This is worth stressing. We have not seen or heard of any evidence that suggests Baldwin orchestrated the leak. So we are tackling some of these statements up top at the beginning of the program

[00:05:28] because we want you to know exactly what this episode is not about. It does not get into any conclusive answers about the reasons behind the leak. Westerman has not shared his motives. It's not about exonerating the old defense or condemning them. It's about getting at the

[00:05:46] facts. It's not about weighing whether or not the old defense team was rightfully removed or arguing about whether or not they should be reinstated. Those are issues for the Indiana Supreme Court to consider in January. Our episode today is simply about presenting new

[00:06:02] details of the leak in an easy-to-follow format. Here's a preview of what we will cover. We were talking about two prior incidents that have been conflated and confused with the most recent leak. We will go through ours communications with Mark. We would discuss the pieces of

[00:06:20] information that got out and when they got out. My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:06:39] And this is The Delphi Murders, the leak. Before we get into the recent Westerman leak, let's talk about those two prior breaches. People frequently ask us, haven't there been other intentional disclosures of confidential documents by case parties? Well, to answer simply, no.

[00:07:44] At least not that we're aware of. However, there are two incidents that might come a little bit close to meeting that definition. Back on December 20th, 2022, we received an email from a burner account. Someone who wrote us was claiming to have crime scene photographs.

[00:08:02] We were immediately skeptical because the email account was linked to an internet crank, and these communications were written in that crank's typical unhinged, unserious style. We discovered that these allegedly bombshell images were grainy, unclear photos taken by

[00:08:21] searchers. They were not graphic. They didn't show bodies, they seemingly just showed clothes. They also reveal very little about the case. Those touting them as the next big scoop were simply desperate for attention. So that leak did not involve any of the parties in this case?

[00:08:40] Because the pictures in that leak did not come from law enforcement or the prosecutor's office or Richard Allen's defense team. The ultimate source was civilian searchers who obviously trusted the wrong people at some point. It's also not clear to us when this leak actually occurred.

[00:08:59] The most disturbing element of this leak for us was the fact that someone was going around trying to leverage the images to their advantage and making over-the-top claims that the images bore out whatever cobbled together theory they were out hawking.

[00:09:14] The next leak is much more relevant to this story. This one involves Brandon Woodhouse. Woodhouse is a man who was frequently in trouble with the law in Carroll County. He has made startling and unverified claims about abuses he supposedly suffered from Carroll

[00:09:31] County authorities. Andrew Baldwin made contact with him at some point. We view this in the context of the old defense team's tendency to seek out figures such as Robert Bestone, who is another incarcerated individual who, had he cooperated, could have helped paint a picture

[00:09:49] of authorities in this case conspiring to abuse inmates. In the meantime, the old defense was getting organized behind the scenes. To help navigate the vast ocean of discovery, they compiled an index that is known as Discovery Product. The index is not part of discovery,

[00:10:08] but it's based on discovery. Kevin once used the example that it's the difference between a list of food items in a fridge and the actual food in the fridge. Baldwin was apparently seeking to email Rosie this index. So Baldwin typed out the letters B-R-A. The email program auto-populated

[00:10:28] Brandon Woodhouse's email instead of Brad Rosie's, and Baldwin hit send before he realized that that is what had occurred. So Woodhouse obtained this Discovery Index. Woodhouse at some point after that sent the Discovery Index to Mark, who published elements of it over time online.

[00:10:48] In terms of timing, we don't have all the facts. We'll go over this later, but Gull stated in chambers that the leak occurred in December of 2022 and that the other parties didn't find out until May 2023. No one corrected her in that conversation. Recently, a transcript of the

[00:11:06] October 19, 2023 in chambers meeting with Gull, McLean, Baldwin, and Rosie came out. This transcript represents the run-up to Baldwin and Rosie's decision to withdraw from the case. Anya will read Gull's words, and I will read Baldwin's responses.

[00:11:26] May of this year, we were notified by the state of the Brandon Woodhouse arrest and the subsequent discovery of your work product. And I think it was an outline that you created for yourselves with the Discovery. It was pretty detailed. I don't know if that's the right word.

[00:11:43] That apparently happened in December of last year, and that was not revealed to anybody, not shared with the court. It wasn't shared with you, although apparently you guys knew about what was going on. He didn't know. You knew. I did know.

[00:12:00] So then, Mr. Woodhouse gets arrested and here we are, grossly negligent to email that to the wrong Brad. When Baldwin says he there, as in he didn't know, he appears to be speaking about his co-counsel,

[00:12:13] Rosie. One question you may have is why were there no immediate consequences to the Woodhouse leak? We don't have any concrete answers on this. Reading between the lines, we imagine that the index's status as Discovery product rather than Discovery made a difference.

[00:12:29] It became more of an issue after the next leak. Let's go over this most recent leak. We went over the basic structure of this breach at the top, but we're going to do it again to avoid any

[00:12:42] confusion. We apologize for the repetition, but we feel it's important to emphasize the facts of this very complicated story. A letter from Rosie to the court indicates that Baldwin spoke with Westerman about the case, seeking out his strategic insights. Westerman leaked elements

[00:12:59] of those conversations out. He also confessed to a further breach in August. He claimed that while visiting Baldwin's office in Franklin, he headed into a conference room, pulled out his phone and took pictures of Discovery materials sitting on a table. Westerman then sent that

[00:13:15] to R, a friend who also was invested in the Delphi case. R sent the images to Mark. R also alluded to sending them to at least one other person. Mark sent us the images on October 5th

[00:13:28] and subsequently provided us his communications with R on the condition that we share it with law enforcement. Tragically, amidst the subsequent investigation into the leak, R died by suicide. It's just a horrific outcome to an already disturbing and sad situation.

[00:13:46] Let's say something that we've said before, but that bears repeating. People are more than their worst mistakes. Everyone involved in this is a human being. We can think the leak was a terrible thing, an injustice for Alan and the families of both girls,

[00:14:01] and we can still call for empathy for those involved. What happened to R was a tragedy. Nobody should be dragging him or his family into their conspiracy theories. R should have never been put in this situation.

[00:14:14] In the next section, we will get into a timeline of the leak pieced together from R's communications with Mark. Out of respect for R's privacy, we will not be using direct quotes. We'll be boiling down the messages so that we can simply share their relevant information they contain.

[00:14:31] We'll start this timeline with a seemingly unrelated event. On September 20th, 2023, Court TV broadcasted an interview with one of its journalists, Barbara McDonald. She displayed graphics based on drawings that sources close to the investigation

[00:14:46] provided her with, depicting the positioning of the sticks on the girl's bodies and the bloody smear on the tree. She doesn't indicate that she received that information recently, and in fact she says, I've been hearing about these stick formations and this image

[00:15:00] on the tree for a very long time and very different characterizations than what's in this memorandum. It's important to mention this because indirectly it seemed to set some things in motion. It's a bit of a prelude.

[00:15:15] Because that same day, R was on the Delphi murder subreddit chatting about the broadcast under his Reddit username that we won't be mentioning out of respect for his privacy. R didn't quite express skepticism of the images, but he walked up to the line

[00:15:32] saying he found McDonald's description of the shape of the bloody smear strangely specific. A week later on Wednesday, September 27th, R definitively said that McDonald's graphics were wrong and didn't resemble the smear of blood. That same day, R shared the bloody tree photo

[00:15:50] with Mark in a message on Facebook. R at some point sent the most graphic crime scene images to Mark over Reddit, although we don't know exactly when that occurred. Those messages have since been deleted. He also made a comment directly referring to what was in

[00:16:04] one of the more graphic crime scene images. On Thursday, September 28th, 2023, in a message to Mark, R claimed some level of direct contact with the old defense team. He said he sent them

[00:16:18] to the page of a notorious internet crank with a word of caution. He also indicated that he could pass along Mark's questions to the defense team. Perhaps most surprisingly, R also indicated that he would travel to Franklin, Indiana the next weekend. Franklin,

[00:16:34] of course, is the home of the headquarters of Andrew Baldwin's criminal defense team. R claimed that the defense had asked him to look through the case, raise concerns about potential gaps, and pitch any angles he found missing. Now this is just our interpretation,

[00:16:52] but it seems possible that R may have been appropriating the experiences of his friend, Westerman. That may have been perhaps to protect Westerman. We've not seen any indications that R himself was ever in the criminal defense team's office. The following day, on Friday,

[00:17:09] September 29th, 2023, R said the defense had obtained the phone records of the two victims, Libby German and Abby Williams. That message came in at 5.20 am. This would indicate to us that R was getting day by day updates from Mitch Westerman. On Saturday, September 30th, R also shared that

[00:17:32] the defense team had obtained a phone that once belonged to Johnny Messer, a man named as an alleged odonist in the Frank's memorandum. A few days passed. On Monday, October 2nd, R and Mark talked about Purdue professor Jeffrey Turko. R said that Turko's analysis contradicted

[00:17:52] claims made by the police, and that Baldwin, who R referred to as Andy, had audio of Turko. As a side note, we would be very curious and interested to hear if Professor Turko ever confirms that particular interpretation. R also claimed that Judge Gold had indicated

[00:18:11] she would set up a suppression hearing. He claimed that Baldwin was digging into whether or not that meant a regular suppression hearing, or a Frank's hearing. The Woodhouse leak also came up that day. R asked about a video involving Woodhouse and Mark. He expressed interest in possibly sending

[00:18:29] Mark the crime scene images. Later that day, R had some more insight on the defense. He claimed that he had tried to warn Allen's team to avoid conspiracy theories, especially those dragging in the victims' families and other public figures in the Delphi case. The conversation centered around

[00:18:48] one public figure in particular. That public figure has long been the subject of what seemed to us to be ridiculous rumors and outlandish theories. We do not wish to contribute to that mess by actually naming the person so we will be declining to do so. This speculation just

[00:19:06] strikes us to borrow Anya's term as more Delphi fan fiction. Anyway, Reddit bears out what R wrote there. On Saturday, December 10th, 2022, R made a comment in the Moscow Murder Subreddit comparing YouTuber's smearing of the victims' families and other public figures in the Delphi

[00:19:26] case with what happened in Sandy Hook. That refers to the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where gunmen murdered 20 elementary schoolers and six adult school staffers. Conspiracy theorists have hounded the victims' families ever since.

[00:19:44] For what it's worth, we think that R's comparison was an apt one. But in his communications with Mark, R said trouble might be ahead for one specific public figure because the defense was playing to smear that person either as an odinist or at least

[00:19:59] as someone who was adjacent to odinism. He expressed hope that they would not do such a thing with minimal evidence. That night, R sent Mark two unreleased sketches. All of R's online activity did not go ignored. Others were taking note of his statements on Reddit and Facebook.

[00:20:17] R said one person even messaged him asking him if he worked for the defense. Then, Mark asked if the sketches were confidential. R said he did not want to be the one to let the

[00:20:27] sketches get out since they were discovery materials and he assumed they were under the gag order. In reality, they were under the protective order. When Mark asked who else had seen the images, R claimed that he was the only one to see the crime scene pictures,

[00:20:43] that he shared materials with one other person as well. We don't know who that person is and we don't know if the claim about the crime scene images is true. On Wednesday, October 4th, R and Mark discussed elements of the crime scene.

[00:20:57] At 3.37 pm, R wrote that he wanted the bloody tree picture to get out there because so many people were getting facts wrong when discussing it. So he and Mark worked out a plan. If Mark posted the bloody tree photo on Facebook,

[00:21:10] both men assumed that would be fine. They felt the Woodhouse leak would give Mark enough cover. R didn't feel it would be a problem for Alan's team. He said that over the weekend, he was supposed to go down to Franklin, presumably to meet with the defense team.

[00:21:24] He indicated that he felt the bloody tree picture helped the defense team, although he noted he didn't necessarily wish to aid Alan's team. He said he only wanted a fair fight, transparency and the dispelling of misinformation about the tree picture.

[00:21:38] Instructions followed. R wanted Mark to take a screenshot of the bloody tree image and then send it back to him. R told Mark to protect him by posting a screenshot of the image rather than

[00:21:50] the image itself, and even suggested that he make a poll asking commentators whether they thought the smear on the tree appeared to be an F, a rune, blood splatter or something else. Then Mark posted the image. R became upset with the reception because many commentators were

[00:22:08] skeptical and angry over the picture. He expressed remorse for being involved in publishing the tree photo, and also asserted that he had a version of the picture with an evidence label. After midnight on Thursday, October 5th, he mentioned information on his version of the image

[00:22:26] saying that the original was a paper printout and that was then photographed. He indicated that he then cropped that version and then had Mark screenshot that. They also made references to Matt Hoffman who is an investigator on the former defense team.

[00:22:41] That afternoon, R referred to his source in a conversation with Mark. We believe that is Westerman. He said that he hadn't yet told him about the publication of the photo, although he indicated

[00:22:52] that Westerman knew he was digging into the case. At 2.39pm he updated Mark that Westerman was going to be with Baldwin that night and that R himself might go down to Franklin that coming Saturday. R said that he passed on the information, presumably to his source,

[00:23:06] that internet sleuth had obtained a wealth of materials, presumably including the leak discovery and that they could drop them at any moment. That night, R expressed concern that some people on Facebook were posting about the potential leak of graphic crime scene images. That was

[00:23:23] the end of the back and forth between R and Mark, although R did reach up a few times afterward. We'll say here again what we've said before. We think that R and Mark were both men caught

[00:23:34] up in something that quickly got out of control. We want to encourage everyone to have compassion. We can be appalled by the effect the leak has had on Abby and Libby's families and the case,

[00:23:46] and also understand that people make mistakes. Mark cooperated with police in order to try to do the right thing. R does not seem to have intended harm. He and his family did not deserve

[00:23:56] to be put in this awful position. It's tragic all around. We can all hate that this happened and still give grace to the real human beings involved. But in terms of the leak, what do all of these communications tell us? Well, R seemed to be getting regular updates

[00:24:14] about new developments and overall strategy in the case, and he was sharing those. He was also sharing the discovery material that he received from Westermen. All of that broadens the leak from a one-time incident involving Westermen sneaking into a conference room to an ongoing

[00:24:31] breach. Westermen, it seems, was passing along all kinds of information to at least one person. An impulsive decision to take photographs seems a bit different than a long-term, ongoing, drip-drip-drip type release of information. The fact that day by day updates were going on

[00:24:52] about things like discovery or the next possible wave of odinism related accusations is shocking. We don't feel that was beneficial to Alan. The defense doesn't have to turn over everything to the prosecution prior to trial, and having some strategic moves close to the vest

[00:25:09] can be a positive. Confidentiality is also so important in our legal system, so it's surprising to see that fall apart to the degree that it did here in its important case, especially given

[00:25:20] the original leaker was extremely familiar with the legal space. How did all of this go on for so long without anyone noticing? We imagine that's a central question for many of you.

[00:25:33] Well, according to one story, the members of at least one group may have seen ours public posts, may have figured out that there was a leak, and have even attempted to warn one of the parties

[00:25:46] in this case. This is one of those stories that if true changes a lot about our understanding of the leak. But is it true? Is it even credible at all? After all, it comes from some pretty

[00:25:59] strange figures in the online community around the case. We'll get into all of that tomorrow. In our next episode, we will be going in depth into a group of online sleuths obsessed with the Delphi case. That might sound familiar. There's been plenty of think pieces positive

[00:26:16] and negative churned out about sleuths and their impact on cases. It's a cliche at this point. But let's just say this is next level mind boggling. We'll be sharing what we've gathered on this group from current Informer members and from their own words. We'll be taking you

[00:26:34] through their claims and history of bizarre online and in real life behavior, and we'll be drilling down into one sleuths claim about how he had warned the defense that R was a leaker,

[00:26:47] only to be ignored. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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