The Delphi Murders: Three Days of Pretrial Hearings: Day Three

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[00:01:52] So today we attended the last and longest day of the three days of pre-trial hearings in the Delphi murders case. This is of course the murder case surrounding Liberty, German and Abigail Williams, two Delphi teenagers who were murdered in 2017.

[00:02:13] The man accused and charged with murdering them is named Richard Allen and he is facing those charges and he's heading towards trial in October allegedly. This hearing started at 9 a.m. and it lasts until 8.30 p.m. and we will tell you all about it in just a moment.

[00:02:32] My name is Anya 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.

[00:02:45] Three days of pre-trial hearings day three. So as you can probably hear already we've actually been up since 4 a.m. And we got four hours of sleep last night. So if we apologize if we sound kind of weird.

[00:03:53] We've been running around. People are used to it. Yeah people like well there's no difference. That force left the barn along the way. The horses left the country at this point so yeah. So the morning starts with taking care of a bit of old business from yesterday.

[00:04:14] Yesterday was devoted to whether or not the confessions which Allen has made 61 at least confessions of his involvement in this crime of killing Abby and Libby. And the question is are these going to be admitted or not?

[00:04:32] And so testimony on that issue ended yesterday. But they didn't get to the arguments yesterday. You know attorneys after they present their evidence they get to offer an argument.

[00:04:46] They basically say well you've heard all the evidence now I'm going to tell you judge why I'm right and why you should rule for me. And I've got to I don't know there's so much to cover.

[00:04:58] And we're going to go in let's just say we're going to go in chronological order because there's a lot to cover but unlike yesterday where like all the really interesting stuff was toward the end this the interesting stuff is scattered throughout so listen to the whole thing because there's going to be some big stuff at the end too.

[00:05:12] But I'm saying I because there's so much I don't know if we really want to go into a lot of detail on their arguments because I feel it's also basically what they said yesterday.

[00:05:24] But I will say, and this is something that I think I and on in particular would be also complaining about later. There was so much material to get through today and I do not think the defense attorneys in particular were good stewards of their time.

[00:05:43] Rad Rosie made what was like a half hour 45 minute argument which was incredibly repetitive.

[00:05:51] And basically his argument was well Richard Allen is in such poor conditions at the prison that it means anything he says is the result of coercion somehow produced by these bad circumstances he's in and so should be thrown out. And he said that for as I say about 45.

[00:06:13] Yeah, it felt longer but it was about 45 minutes and it was one of those things that I think if you boiled it down. It would actually be a lot more powerful and impactful for everyone and it just the defense today.

[00:06:26] This was something that was I feel like needlessly dragged on again and again and I don't understand it unless they don't seem to know how to like stop talking and just let their points carry and Brad Rosie and fairness to him.

[00:06:41] He did I think a pretty good job yesterday.

[00:06:43] He started out today kind of not as not as I don't know that he kind of didn't have that spark that he did yesterday, but in general I feel like out of the three defense attorneys including Jennifer OJ and Andrew Baldwin.

[00:06:55] He's been by far the strongest performance these three days. Now, in summary my own summation, these three days have been completely disastrous for this defense team. But out of the three Rosie has carried the day again and again that's just my opinion.

[00:07:10] So I like spoiler alert today was another disaster for the day was another disaster that I do before we leave this topic. I wrote down a couple of quotes from his argument in reference to Dr. Walla who of course heard some of the confessions of Richard Allen.

[00:07:26] He said Dr. Walla was not acting as his psychologist she was acting as a friend.

[00:07:33] That was really bizarre. And can I just say with Dr. Walla we've talked about that and I don't really feel comfortable necessarily weighing you know in that situation too much until we really get a sense for some mental health professionals about what her ethical obligations are,

[00:07:48] you know what the impact of the case could be. Generally, I understand the concerns about her taking such a personal investment in Richard Allen's case. But at the same time it really doesn't sound like there's any evidence that she did anything particularly egregious in terms of his case.

[00:08:02] And so whatever, but where I'm going with this is that one thing that Rosie did a great job was was building her up yesterday and tearing her down.

[00:08:11] At the first she's like his friend who's taken care of him and was doing all these accommodations for him and can really speak to how hard of a time he was having and all his mental health struggles.

[00:08:19] Then the next minute she's this true crime obsessed lady who's who's you know getting too invested and broke all the rules.

[00:08:27] And that was actually very effective from like a drama standpoint but from a legal standpoint, if you need her to prove that he is having all these problems maybe don't go after her that hard.

[00:08:41] Right. Or if you need to go after her that hard don't build her up and lean on her for the other stuff. And then the prosecution got a chance to offer their their own argument.

[00:08:54] And this was done by Stacy Deener and she was much more concise and on point and I thought she did a fine job again making some of the arguments from yesterday.

[00:09:07] Yeah, it's not coercive for Alan to be making unsolicited statements to those around him including to Dr. Walla who asked him to stop talking and said basically don't talk to people without your lawyer including to his family who were telling him to shut up and hanging up on him.

[00:09:24] He is he is putting himself in these situations where he is desperate to make these confessions it is not anyone trying to press him into anything. She said he was motivated by religion and not coercion and mentioned that he wanted to give Bibles to people.

[00:09:38] Oh, that made me really uncomfortable. I'm not going to lie. I'll say that. Oh, I don't mind saying that that is a feeling that I had when we were listening to that.

[00:09:47] He talked about how he wants to give Bibles away to people who need them including he wanted to send his Bible to the families of his alleged victims. So yeah, that was that was it. It was disturbing. That was that was really disturbing.

[00:10:03] And she repeated that the confessions that were made by Richard Allen include details that would be only known by a person who was there at the crime as it's happening. And that's the gold standard for a confession.

[00:10:21] If a confession includes details that only the killer would know that makes it obviously far more credible. A person having a psychotic break and suddenly going around making dozens of false confessions, he's not going to be able to make confessions that have details only the killer would know.

[00:10:41] And let's just clear something up because I think this is really important. And I think it's important for people to go with the facts and not just like some garbled version of what they're hearing.

[00:10:50] And we were on, you know, Court TV tonight and I felt like people didn't seem to understand this, but it's been repeated ad nauseum that Allen has made false confessions because he said things like, oh, the girls were shot in the head or I molested them before they were killed.

[00:11:07] And what people say correctly is that the crime scene does not indicate either of those things happen. So those must be false. And if that was something that we knew him to have actually said, then that would be a very salient point.

[00:11:19] But what came out on testimony yesterday with Detective Brian Harshman was that we're looking at not just audio and video recordings.

[00:11:27] We're looking at written testimonials in the form of log sheets or door sheets or whatever you want to call them that his prison inmate companions who are basically watching him on suicide watch are making.

[00:11:41] And there is very much what seems to be the strong potential for a telephone game where he says something, one of the companions writes it down. They tell someone else and then suddenly he shot them instead of stab them.

[00:11:56] That seems very likely to me and I think that was borne out by some of the things Detective Harshman said. So that's another thing where the defense is writing this check where it's like, yeah, that were true. That would be pretty, pretty important to note.

[00:12:08] But instead it's like this kind of like, oh wait, when you look at it that way, it actually does not absolve him of anything.

[00:12:16] So I don't know, I just feel like that's important to state because so many people seem to be running with whatever I guess suits their preconceived notions. So after that there was some back and forth about what today was going to be about.

[00:12:31] And today was going to be about a motion in limine filed by the prosecution and I'll make it as clear as possible. I'll make it. Insultingly simplistic.

[00:12:46] Basically, when a prosecutor files a motion in limine like they did in this case, it's to tell the defense, put up or shut up. You've been talking about odinism put up or shut up.

[00:13:01] If you have evidence that actually is relevant and is material and connects these particular odinists to the crime show it to us in court. And then you can use it in the trial.

[00:13:14] And if you don't have such evidence, if you're just talking out of your hat, then you're not going to be allowed to use it in the trial. And so they made these requests, these put up or shut up requests about a variety of things.

[00:13:26] I think most important for our purposes today, one of them was about odinism. One of them was about Kagan Klein, which would be very interesting. That will be quite interesting for long time listeners. And one was about Rod Lulke.

[00:13:42] And I think those were the ones that dominated the deck. Yeah, it's kind of a smorgasbord of people who are brought up in this case as far as suspects. That was interesting.

[00:13:51] And I will say this again, people kind of often are like, well, can the judge just take away their little odinism theory? Is that right?

[00:14:02] And first of all, I think it's such a bad theory that you'd be doing them a huge favor to force them to recalibrate and pump the brakes on what they're doing.

[00:14:09] So I mean, I don't think it would be a huge tragedy for them personally, even though I'm sure it would be very frustrating.

[00:14:14] But second of all, we don't want to live in a system where basically I can just like look out the window of the courthouse and point to some guy and say, I think he did it. Don't look at my client.

[00:14:25] You don't want that because then it just makes witch hunts a lot easier. Have to have rules. You have to have rules of evidence.

[00:14:32] You have to have rules like you can't just bring whatever I can't bring in bozo the clown to like point the finger and say, you know, this is what happened.

[00:14:40] You have to have evidentiary standards and make your case based on that even when you're the defense, you want the defense to have a larger latitude. They're not bound by the same rules as the prosecution.

[00:14:52] But at the same time, you don't want there just being no rules at all because that's that's not good. Okay, so after all that was settled and again, please remember time was at a premium today. This is our last day of doing that. I was at a premium.

[00:15:09] And because of that we ran to almost nine o'clock and people were having to cut things out because they weren't able to use everything they wanted to use. They had to really just cut down to the bone. Keep that in mind when I tell you this.

[00:15:23] Andy Baldwin began the presentation by making an opening statement that I think was probably what about 45 minutes long. Yes. And this opening statement was basically him pretty much dryly and in an uninteresting manner just reciting everything he was going to do later that day.

[00:15:44] Andrew Baldwin can be a very engaging attorney to watch and to see him almost perform. He has kind of that theatrical element to him, that sort of kind of actor mode.

[00:15:56] We've seen him in this mode at times and that when you see that you might not be impressed by it because maybe you don't think it's born out by facts. But you can also sort of appreciate it for what it is and find it compelling.

[00:16:10] He was not in that mode today at all. Like 45 minutes and also please, please imagine what it would be like if at the beginning of an episode I came on and dryly spoke for like 15 minutes. It was like, well, we're going to do this and this.

[00:16:26] And then at one point Ania is going to make a reference to stealing cereal and I'm going to make a confusing comparison to something. And then we do it.

[00:16:37] And then you just described the show. Unfortunately, everyone's like, how is that different from what I'm normally having to listen to? So he said, here's all these wonderful witnesses that are coming up and here's all the things that they will say.

[00:16:50] And I don't know if you really want to. I took notes on this thing. Are you talking about Dr. Zolan? No, I'm talking about the argument. Oh, I'm sorry. The argument. The opening statement. Okay, well, that, yeah.

[00:17:01] I don't know how much you want to talk about the opening statement. Well, one thing I will say and this would they break into this more later. But what the defense is now alleging is that the timeline that the state has put out there is off.

[00:17:10] That was one thing he mentioned in his opening. And the other thing about the opening, I know you think this is particularly significant. And it also came out later, but it was revealed the contrary to the impression some people have had and put out there.

[00:17:29] The behavioral analysis unit of the FBI actually took a look at this crime and concluded that it was not a ritual murder. And that it was not, these are not Odinist runes. And that in fact, this was what they call undoing.

[00:17:46] So when a killer is undoing a crime scene, they're essentially trying to obscure their crimes. Maybe as a measure of maybe it's like I never did it. So you cover up the body with a blanket that's undoing.

[00:18:01] So when the FBI saw these sticks, when they analyzed it, that's what they said. This is completely contrary to everything that's been at least strongly implied to us before the BAU was fully T modem.

[00:18:13] So this was shocking to me because I was at least thinking, well, listen, I've expressed at times, I think profiling, criminal profiling can be a very useful tool for an investigation.

[00:18:24] I think in the pop culture it gets kind of used irresponsibly and just people are just like wish casting what they want out of a crime. But I think use responsibly, it's fine.

[00:18:34] But we're going to learn about some things that make me feel even more comfortable with profiling compared to what else is out there. But yeah, I was really surprised.

[00:18:42] So the BAU came in, they actually did do something and it was to say that they completely disagree with this analysis. So we don't know any more details on that report or what exactly was done, but that was stated pretty clearly today.

[00:18:55] And then I will say at the end, I think probably the most interesting thing about the argument came at the end where Baldwin said, well, you know, these are all the things we're going to say.

[00:19:09] But you know, you know, folks, we don't really have to prove anything that we've just said. We just have to offer just a little bit of evidence and if there's just a little bit of evidence for it, that that'll be enough for the judge to let it in.

[00:19:20] And then when Prashear Nick McLean stood up, he said, well, no, actually what Mr. Baldwin said is not an accurate statement of the law.

[00:19:31] And he said that the standard is that these things should not be included in the trial unless there is direct and material connection between the third party based on evidence that is admissible at trial.

[00:19:49] Which is fun because a lot of times or at least twice that I remember, the defense made a really big deal about, you know, the defense attorney's best friend, polygraph exams. Because those are so reliable and definitely not in admissible in court.

[00:20:03] And when I talked to defense attorneys, I don't feel like a lot of them are a huge fan of polygraphs because they're notoriously unreliable and often just test how stressed out someone is. And guess what? You can be really stressed out and completely innocent.

[00:20:16] And you can also be cool as a cucumber and completely guilty. So I really don't put a lot of stock in them. So the fact that they kept on being like, and look at this polygraph was like, and Nick McLean kept on objecting around those.

[00:20:28] Like, that's not going to be a lot of trial. You can't just bring that in here. So I just, that was, I guess foreshadowing for what was to come. So then Baldwin says, okay, I'm going to call my first witness is going to be Jerry Holman.

[00:20:39] And if they were able to call Jerry Holman, Ani and I would have been able to have lunch on time. Yeah. That's my prediction. But with or without Jerry Holman. Jerry Holman, I believe was down in the prosecutor's office.

[00:20:55] I don't think he knew that he was going to be the first person called and saw Holman. So, well, so he wasn't available at that moment. So Baldwin said, well, that's no problem. I'll call my expert, my subject matter expert. Don.

[00:21:11] No, no, it's actually, it's Zolan Pearl matter. I think is what they ended up spelling. Okay. I thought it was Dawn at first two based on how he said it. Baldwin, oddly enough, he was very articulate the other day. Like you could hear him pretty well today.

[00:21:28] I don't know whether he wasn't feeling well or what happened, but he was a lot harder to hear than he had been. Again, I don't, so yeah. I'm going to be blunt here. We're going to do some detail in a minute. No, I'm sorry. It was Dawn.

[00:21:46] I'm very tired. I'm very tired. I'm sorry. It's Dawn. It's DAWN. Ah, let's just move on. Jesus. Goodness. And that's what I'm trying to do. Don't want to embarrass anybody here. Too late. Well, somebody's going to be a lot more embarrassed in a bit.

[00:22:03] So I don't know what you want to say about this witness, but she was on the stand for, was it over two hours? Yeah. And I'm going to be blunt with you. Complete waste of time. This is a complete garbage witness, garbage witness disaster. Completely worth this.

[00:22:20] She's an adjunct professor in the forensic medicine program at the Philadelphia College of osteopathic medicine. Okay. And has some degrees in art history. That's helpful. And basically comes out with this absolute. I mean, immediately in my notes, there's a lot of the use of the term.

[00:22:39] Bullshit where she, you know, she is alleged by Baldwin and the way he described her credentials on like, uh-oh, like I just something about this was like, this doesn't sound good. But she's alleged to have, you know, taught the feds how to

[00:22:55] look for a ritualistic crime scene and does all these trainings and whatnot. And like teaches people how to do things that are not right. And she's also been a very, very, very, very, very, very religious. And she teaches people.

[00:23:10] But then you find out that seemingly from what they said, she's only ever testified and. Remurder cases and one was in the US Virgin Islands, one. It's not clear where it was. And then one was in the United States.

[00:23:22] Her big claim to Odinism expertise is that she has worked on a case that she thinks involves Odinism, but is currently open. So I mean, that's her theory. I don't know if that's been confirmed yet. It was a complete disaster. She was a disaster.

[00:23:41] I was shocked that they asked her here. Incredibly poor witness, but she, they asked her because she was a warm body who said this is a textbook case of ritual murder. I stopped taking notes. Oh, I was riveted Kevin. I stopped taking notes.

[00:23:59] I was, I was, I was like, I was shocked. I was shocked. I was shocked. I want to say a couple of things about the cross exam, but before we get there, is there anything else you wanted to say about her direct exam?

[00:24:10] So she talks, I'll just take the floor. So she, she, she, you know, came out with all this stuff about this, this nonsense about, you know, the things I look for are like, you know, if a crime's outside, well, then that tells us something about it.

[00:24:26] And if a crime's with a knife, well, then it might be a ritualistic killing. Like, it was like a whole checklist of what she's looking for. In addition, one thing that immediately raised my hackles was, oh, I look at ritualistic killings. That's my expertise, but also how ritualistic

[00:24:45] killings are different. It's all just about the killer. It's like, well, then why are you here? Let me just say she threw around the term magical thinking. Oh my God. No, let me just, I'm, I can't, let me go off because I've been holding this in all day.

[00:25:00] She, she brings up the term magical thinking a lot. Magical thinking means like somebody who is, I mean, it believes that if you, you know, sacrifice a chicken to Oden, the hill grant you good grain crops for the year. So that's magical thinking. She throws this term around.

[00:25:18] I felt like, I felt like freaking Joan Didion because I had to endure a year of freaking magical thinking by the end of this. This went on forever. He, he, he did direct, he did direct examine. Yes, I do enjoy that, but he did directing

[00:25:33] examination for far too long, but to make it worse. Can I just talk about this is a nitpicking, but I need to get this out. I'm sorry. This woman, Jesus. She at one point several times actually talks about how her methodology is essentially it's,

[00:25:50] it's the opposite or it's not the opposite. It's more anthropological than it is psychological. So the BAU at the FBI will tell you this killer is a sexual sadist and Don Perlmutter will look and say, you know, I think he might be Midwestern Scandinavian.

[00:26:06] It's just, it's hokey nonsense. And I don't care if she's written some books or some chapters on this. This is, this is the, this is the astrology of, of, of crime scene analysis. Okay. This is somebody who's coming in with an agenda

[00:26:22] and we're going to get to that later because it came, it became pretty apparent what her agenda was. But she kept on saying, well, I take this methodology as an academic and you know, it's, it's a very different from the Western rational thought.

[00:26:39] And it's like, you know, just like, just the optics of calling the opposing thinking rational. I mean, like that makes, that makes us in the world of irrationality here as far as I'm concerned and that I, I, I felt like I was maybe

[00:26:57] like dreaming through a lot of the beginning here because it was so bad. It was, it was a disaster. It was a disaster. This, I can't believe they, and I guess we'll get to the timeline of this in, cause it's relevant to our previous reporting

[00:27:14] but we'll get to the timeline, I guess during our discussion of the just insane cross-examination. So I wanted to say, I want to give credit where credit is due. Nick McLean did this cross-examination of this expert and he was brilliant. It was a brilliant cross-examination.

[00:27:34] It was the most devastating. I was going to say it is the most devastating cross-exam I have ever seen and I am including episodes of Perry Mason. Yeah. Yeah. This, this just, He, he demolished her. I was, I was, I mean, I,

[00:27:52] I didn't feel bad for her because stuff came out that I just kind of was like, you're just, you know, I mean, you're a charlatan. But, but I felt bad for her. She said though one of the ways you can tell if a murder is like

[00:28:04] onus to fit is, is, if it's done outdoors, but he said, well, are there murders outdoors that aren't onus? And she agreed and he also said, well, you know, aren't an onus could even commit a murder in theory and it wouldn't be an onus murder.

[00:28:18] And she agreed to that. And he said, well, have you ever in all of your vast experience seen onus target two white girls? No, she's not. Also, yeah, has she ever seen evidence of an onus ritual murder?

[00:28:33] Well, well, that open case, but you know, if it's open then I think there's a pretty good possibility that it has nothing to do with onus. And he, and Nick said, well, you know, when you look at,

[00:28:44] and you study one of these crimes, is it important to look at statements made by the defendant? And she said, oh yes, absolutely. And then she said what she hadn't really looked at any of Rick Allen's confessions.

[00:28:59] And he said, nor she looked, nor she looked at anything about Brad Holder's alibi. I don't know how to give that. Is it important to look at the alibi of the person you were basically accusing? And she, well, that's not my area.

[00:29:10] She's never, she's never looked at Brad Holder's deposition. Or his alibi or even his Facebook, or she's not even looked at any of the evidence against Richard Allen. McLean said, oh, so the only evidence he looked at is what the defense spoon fed you.

[00:29:26] And she said, well, I looked at what they provided. So yes. That's a synonym. So I don't know what industry you're in, but are there industry standards for what you do when you look at crime scene? And he says, and she said, well, we have crime scene conferences.

[00:29:41] Like, yeah, they're not working. And she kept on talking about what the symbols mean. And McLean said, well, you're just guessing at what these symbols mean because only the killer would know. And he said, he also worked in some of the stuff from yesterday

[00:30:00] because he said, if instead of a knife, if a box cutter were used, would that change your interpretation? And of course, it was revealed yesterday in the testimony of Jerry Holman that Richard Allen says he committed the murder with a box cutter. Yes, indeed.

[00:30:18] And I'm just going to note a couple when she was asked, well, if the defendant were to be confessing to the crime and basically doing all this and providing details and saying that he used a knife, would that change your opinion at all? No.

[00:30:32] I mean, because that's not what she was brought in to do. She did look at these Facebook posts from Brad Holder. So he said, well, can you tell from Facebook posts alone the Brad Holder participates in Odin's ritual killings? No.

[00:30:49] Can you tell that he participated in this killing? No. Can you tell that he participates in animal sacrifice? No. Is there anything in those posts that place him at the scene of this crime? No. I mean, honestly, I mean, it was amusing at times,

[00:31:06] but it's honestly incredibly depressing that this is who they brought up as their expert. And he says, he also asked, McLean asked, you know, since you've said that crime scenes in these ritual things are so highly personalized, don't you think it's important to get

[00:31:24] as much information as possible about the person you are accusing and all you got were a few Facebook posts from Brad Holder. Didn't you look at anything and no. Anything about him as a person that would lend credence to any of this?

[00:31:38] And again, like I just want to emphasize her whole methodology is like, I look for symbols. It's like, guess what? That's called drawing too many conclusions based on patterns that only you see. That's not a skill set. And she said one of the reasons why she knew that

[00:31:53] this was a ritual murder was because it was obviously not sexually motivated. So McLean said, why do you say it was not sexually motivated? And she said, well, there was no sexual assault mentioned in the autopsy. And then McLean said, can a crime be sexually motivated

[00:32:14] but could the murder occur before the assault happens? And that was interesting to me because that was an interesting way of phrasing and it reminded me that yesterday Brian Harshman said that Richard Allen had revealed his motivation for this crime.

[00:32:32] So a crime, just to be clear in case we're just too tired to convey this, if someone attacks a victim with the intent of committing some sort of sexually based crime and then kills them prior to the crime happening to the sexual assault,

[00:32:48] then that's still a sexually based crime because that was motivation. And I believe with that question prosecutor Nicholas McLean was suggesting that this crime was sexually motivated but that the murder happened before the sexual assault occurred. Can I just say something?

[00:33:05] You have two teenage girls, a 13 year old and a 14 year old who were stripped, forced to strip as part of the commission of this crime and you're telling me that's not giving any indications of a sexually motivated crime. Are you kidding me?

[00:33:26] Like forget who did it, forget Richard Allen, forget Brad and Holder and the gang. What the heck? I don't know, whatever. She also said obviously the sticks that were left on the bodies were symbols and not meant to cover the bodies and she said that was because

[00:33:47] they didn't completely cover the bodies and McLean said well if the defendant said the sticks were placed there to cover the body would that change your mind about them being symbols and she said no. Would it change your mind to know that the defendant

[00:34:03] admitted he killed the girls and she said no. And then her interpretation of as we know by the crime scene there was a tree that had a symbol on it in blood, I'm not speaking, the tree has a shape on it

[00:34:22] that some people say looks like an F, other people say looks like an upside down L and the defense has suggested that that is actually a symbol put on there to suggest something about odinism and this expert witness said

[00:34:38] it obviously was and it couldn't have been blood splatter and so McLean said well what is your experience as a blood splatter expert and she had none and she or I guess did she have any I think she had some minor training in crime scene

[00:34:57] investigation techniques but frankly who knows what that even means. Well he says you have no training in blood splatter so how can you rule that out and she's well I can rule it out because of the appearance and the context and I know about

[00:35:10] other cases where there have been markings on a tree. So if you know of one case where there's a marking on a tree that means in any case where there's anything on the tree it must be a symbol. I've never seen anything like this, I mean I know

[00:35:20] that not every expert has to be a scientist or use the scientific method but there's something really insane and I would encourage everyone listen to our episode with Dr. Steven Novella we'll include it in our link to in our show notes

[00:35:34] because that was you know you don't just come in with you know I don't come in and say Kevin must be a Martian from Mars and let me do everything to prove that. I've got to rule stuff out, you have to rule

[00:35:47] out what you want it to be and then if you can't and maybe that's duplicatable maybe you have something but like this woman literally her whole methodology seems to be these are the symbols I want to see or these are the... Golly here they are

[00:36:01] Here they are, here's what they mean, context and then refuse to back down off of that don't let anything like you know learning about the alleged perpetrators bother you they know just lock it down and then McLean asked her would you agree

[00:36:16] that it is important before you make a final analysis or conclusion about something is it important for you to actually look at the relevant materials you're analyzing and she said sure yeah and then he said well when did you get the relevant materials to analyze in this

[00:36:36] case and she said well I got them at some time in April 2024 Can we highlight why that's important? Yes because oh go ahead You know why, because okay like I'll include a link to this one too so Lauren Crow the head of the truth which is

[00:36:53] a inclusive pro LGBTQ anti-racist pagan group you know heathens that we've had her on the show a lot of times she's awesome she told us that in mid April Andrew Baldwin the attorney in this case called her essentially begging her to be a

[00:37:15] subject matter expert for his team to talk about odinism and related topics that was in April so he didn't get her he did not get her so again let me get back to where I was she has just admitted you need to look at

[00:37:30] evidence before you make a conclusion and she has said well I first looked at the evidence in this case in April of 2024 and Nick McLean pointed out what isn't that interesting because in September of 2023 you appeared on court TV and you gave an analysis of this

[00:37:46] case at a time you'd not observe any evidence from the case and you said that it was a classic ritual murder and you said this based on material you looked at that came from a motion that the defense wrote and filed oops so she made up her mind

[00:38:05] based on a motion filed by the defense and obviously the defense when they make a motion they're arguing a case so she's getting one side and she's drawing conclusions on national TV and he's in McLean said well you know obviously you make money by appearing

[00:38:23] as a witness and doing consultants and it would probably look pretty bad if you give an opinion on national TV that something's a ritual murder and then once you look at the actual evidence if you changed your mind so maybe that's part of the reason why

[00:38:39] you so stubbornly insist on this I was really disgusted when I heard that to be honest because I mean if like as you said it's like a warm body to say what they want to say and to a certain extent you have to regard all

[00:38:54] case experts whether they're coming in for the prosecution or the defense with a level of skepticism because to a certain extent they're all on a team and they're playing for that team but you can do that job with honesty and candor and with an open mind perhaps

[00:39:10] where you're not completely committing whatever the hell this was I was disgusted and I know it sounds like we're being hard on her but like you're coming into a murder case to put your methodology to use and then it turns out you've already made up your mind

[00:39:26] months before based on nothing well I think the real person to criticize here is Andrew Baldwin yeah in fairness yes I think this was a poor choice and also as I say while he was spending like I think it was over two hours right with this witness

[00:39:46] it felt like again a year of magical thinking I'll make that joke again there were other witnesses waiting to be called and their time had to be cut short because of all of the time devoted to this witness and to his long lengthy opening statement and

[00:40:04] there was some pretty important witnesses that I feel didn't get as much time and attention as they should because of this nonsense and there's I'm not gonna lie to you it was nonsense it was a complete waste of time and in some sense yes it is on her

[00:40:18] but in some larger sense he was the one that brought her in he prepared her he was the one that said yes this is a good idea to spend a couple of hours on this busy day and delay everyone's lunch so she can

[00:40:33] it's not just delay everyone's lunch though I know you're being silly and facetious there but it's a waste of everybody's time we're supposed to be here to get at why should this trial include a whole sideshow about Brad Holder, Patrick Westfall Elvis Fields

[00:40:51] Johnny Messer and a plethora of other people who are allegedly in this odinous cult who sacrificed the girls in the woods I want to get down into what is the evidence against them specifically not just oh someone thinks these sticks are ruined

[00:41:05] you know I mean frankly it would be nice to have the BAU backing them up on that but they couldn't get there so they had to bring in this person you know but that's what it's supposed to be about it's not like a chance to have this

[00:41:17] nonsense go on forever I was appalled it was a waste of everybody's time it was a waste of the court's time frankly I mean I was insulted and I when is like get serious about this you couldn't find anyone else

[00:41:37] and you know what if you can't find anyone else then maybe you're wrong maybe the odinous theory is weak and crumbling under its own weight and I gotta tell you everybody I talked to in the courtroom about that witness was appalled you talk to people in the press

[00:41:55] you talk to case observers you talk to some people who tend to be more sympathetic with the defense you talk to some people who are more sympathetic with the prosecution you talk to some people who are undecided they don't really know

[00:42:07] they're just kind of here to listen and hear everyone out I didn't hear anyone be like wow it was really good that was powerful and I just went about her testimony I heard a lot of comments like that about his cross-examination including I came back from lunch

[00:42:25] and I'm in the gallery and I'm sitting next to you I think you were talking to someone and I wasn't I was staring straight ahead and Baldwin and McLean are talking a few feet away from me and during this lunch break Andrew Baldwin said

[00:42:41] that was a great cross man Baldwin was correct about that but frankly I give Nick a lot of credit for that but with Andy it's like you know you didn't like that's like you just gave him like it's in volleyball where you set him up

[00:42:59] to spike your side and he did a great job with it but like it's like a boxer who's not putting his hands up to defend himself it's like why would you put yourself in the situation where you get that owned by somebody like you didn't

[00:43:17] listen to what this person was saying and think ooh well actually this sounds really stupid let me get out of here you know I mean they could have had somebody come on who just knew a little bit about odinism and maybe was generally like more neutral on it

[00:43:31] it was less of a yes man but perhaps wouldn't look as ridiculous I mean I was appalled and again like I'm sorry I don't like being mean and snarking on people but we would be doing you a disservice if we give you anything less than what we felt

[00:43:49] about this because I feel like this is like a whole very extreme symptom of a wider problem with this theory and how the defense is handling it so after lunch the first witness was Jerry Holman he was asked by Baldwin some questions about sketch one

[00:44:07] sketch two these are the sketches of like an older looking gentleman and a younger looking gentleman who are said to be bridge guy and Holman says I've always thought that those two sketches were the same person and Baldwin says well here is a press release

[00:44:23] from the United States police which says otherwise what do you think of that and McLean said well it's not on him to tell you what the Indiana State police is the whole thing he can just tell you what he himself thinks and Baldwin said oh yeah that's interesting

[00:44:39] but oh look at this press release McLean says well you know the press release is you know the court can look at that and it speaks for itself you don't need to go through it line by line and torturing

[00:44:53] Holman over it and so Baldwin said oh yeah I guess so and then that was the end of the testimony I'm gonna say as McLean was more quiet the first two days I think but he was really on fire today I think this was probably

[00:45:05] one of his best days in courts I mean I think certainly the cross examination was the highlight that we discussed already but he was very very very on point so I thought he did really well and he was not really letting a lot slide today

[00:45:21] for what I could see at least that's my opinion so that ended that testimony pretty quickly and then the next witness was Amber Holder do you wanna go through this or let me tell you what was interesting she actually I didn't maybe this was in some of the

[00:45:35] I mean one problem with some of these is that like all the information is already included in hearings so you kind of feel like what are we getting here but she revealed some things that I was not aware of and one of those things essentially got into

[00:45:55] she actually practices the she worships as she phrased it she worships the old Norse gods and the way she told the story she and Brad Holder were only married for a few months in 2018 and she more of seemingly he adopted her religion

[00:46:15] he didn't bring her into it he got into it through her and so she indicated that he was kind of conflicted because he was a he you know was from a Christian family she kind of indicated that his like from a number of generations of Christian preachers

[00:46:29] and so he felt somewhat conflicted maybe like at times wanted to worship both and so I didn't really realize that she was more of the driving force with the Odinism she kind of pushed back against Baldwin a few times and he was gracious about it

[00:46:45] but she's like there's no such thing as Odinism like we call ourselves you know she the way she phrased it was we worship the ancient Norse gods and then she was kind of then there was other stuff that she said that was very much what we've heard before

[00:47:05] yeah basically that he Brad Holder at one point said that he and Patrick Westfall had some sort of a disagreement in the woods about involving sacrifices and that out of that somehow strained the relations between the two men and they were no longer friends

[00:47:29] and so I think we're probably supposed to think that was about the Delphi case but she indicated that he never specifically said it was about the Delphi case and that was that about it there was also at the most egregious one where Brad Holder indicated that Patrick Westfall

[00:47:51] his former friend killed Abby Williams and that she would need to keep her mouth shut they cut their hands over a wooden over a metal bowl as part of some ritual and you know Dr. Perlmutter thinks that if people start sacrificing animals and cutting their hands human sacrifice

[00:48:13] is just down the lane that was like I phrased it in a snarky way but that is basically what she said at one point and you know it really wasn't particularly interesting because first of all I guess maybe we're burned out by coverage of other cases but

[00:48:29] you would be surprised by how many times like I tend to when people like have these kind of like weird pseudo kind of implications and confessions I actually don't necessarily tend to discount the witness I tend to perhaps discount the person making it the confession

[00:48:43] we have seen this many many times where you have sketchy men who want to scare people in their lives so they sort of darkly imply things about what they were doing around an infamous crime this happened a lot in the Burger Chef Murders case if you ask people

[00:48:59] in Indianapolis area everybody seems to sometimes have a you know an evil uncle or an awful cousin who was really into drugs who came back with a you know kind of a you know van that night and then said don't tell anyone where I was today

[00:49:13] and you know they all think that they're the ones who committed the crime but without more corroborating evidence or something that's more than just her claiming that he said this I think it kind of goes nowhere in my opinion yeah I mean what do you think

[00:49:27] am I giving it too much credibility do you think she was making it up no she seemed credible to me but the question is was he credible can I just say like it was weird that Baldwin didn't focus more on the one

[00:49:39] that was more about like I think Patrick Westfall did this or like you know like why not hone that but she didn't really have any details it was like Bradholder would get drunk and say things and then she'd repeat them but she seemed

[00:49:49] not really willing to go any further with it yeah and a story without evidence is just a story so this was this was a story the next witness was Kevin Murphy this is one of the investigators who worked the so-called Odinism lead very very hard but

[00:50:09] was ultimately unable to come up with solid evidence for it yes he worked in the FBI's joint terrorism task force along with a investigator named Greg Farensey and along with Todd Klick they sort of made up what I think of as like the Odinism

[00:50:27] Triumvirate where they were all working on that angle together and he indicated that he left the state police in 2021 although he was quick to say that he did not fire it he retired good standing and he indicated that he worked on the Delphi case specifically

[00:50:47] from February 21st 2017 to October 1st I think he said 2019 so was there early on when they were like bringing in a lot of people a lot of people were working this case early on and then at some point he left but while he was working

[00:51:03] the case sometime prior to Christmas of 2017 he said he got a tip that a man in Rushville named Elvis Fields had told family members that he had killed the girls and what they decided to do was to arrange for someone who knew Fields to make what is called

[00:51:27] a controlled phone call where this person would call Fields and try to steer the conversation down to the crime in a settled manner and get incriminating statements perhaps which would be recorded but the call went south because this person relatively early on in the call

[00:51:47] just suddenly blurted out Elvis why did you kill those girls? Can we explain who that is? So it's Mary Jacobs which is Elvis Fields' sister and she came to police with this tip very urgent that she believed her brother Elvis that he came back

[00:52:05] and said all these incriminating things so she made a big deal about it and got in touch with police about it Murphy said at some point he had a conversation with the prosecutor about this lead wasn't entirely clear to me if the prosecutor he spoke to

[00:52:22] was Nick McLean or his predecessor Ives Robert Ives, yeah I think they cleared that up because at one point McLean was like but I didn't start until 2018 and he said but he said that when he told the prosecutor about the lead the prosecutor said

[00:52:38] well if it's got legs run with it so it sounds like the prosecutor was encouraging yeah that sounds like it was handled appropriately one thing I've kept an eye out for is like is there any indication that unified command came down

[00:52:50] with an iron fist and told these guys back off the Odinism investigation you're getting too close oh I mean uh and it seems like everything I hear is that it was looked into and that's kind of what it was like that's how an investigation works

[00:53:08] it was looked into thoroughly just because it didn't have an optimal outcome for Richard Allen or the defense doesn't mean they did it wrong and not enough evidence was found to lead to an arrest yeah yeah so I don't know so uh

[00:53:24] Murphy actually ended up interviewing Elvis Fields in the company of Jerry Holman in the course of this interview he got a swab from uh uh Elvis and uh at the conclusion of this interview they were dropping or I guess Murphy was dropping uh Fields

[00:53:42] off and this is one Field he felt bad for the guy so he gave him a ride home to his trailer yeah this is one Field made the famous comment if it turns out that you test that and find out that I spit on the girls

[00:53:54] would I be in trouble and Murphy said he just gave kind of a quick BS answer and left but he said he regrets that and wishes he had encouraged further conversation and let me just say that at this point especially this witness took on a very

[00:54:10] how would you describe it I'm trying to be sensitive here it was very intense he seemed to be taking things in a very intense way on the stand is that fair to say yes like it wasn't just like you know it was like it like

[00:54:24] palpable like I have regrets like very intense he said I made a mistake I'm human and then he was shown some crime scene photos this was upsetting he got very emotional and started to cry he said it's tough and he yelled out it sucks

[00:54:40] and he like kind of threw his head up like he got very very upset pretty quickly I just uh I felt genuinely bad for him it was it was a little disturbing to watch honestly but then again we know how upsetting that stuff can be

[00:54:58] so I felt for him and just because someone's a police officer doesn't mean they don't have you know feelings about this stuff so I could imagine it was upsetting and it sounds like he's left the state police but I mean it's it's definitely a very disturbing case

[00:55:12] so it sticks with you then it was time for cross examination and prosecutor McLean brought out that at some point Kevin Murphy had apparently come to the conclusion that Elvis Fields was just toying with him and apparently at some point some of Mary Jacobs' credibility became uh

[00:55:34] he began to doubt her because when he visited her home he saw quite a bit of mental health medicines and now you can you can certainly have a mental illness and be treating that and still be credible in telling the truth and not what Murphy seemed to think

[00:55:50] at least in statements he made in the past he indicated that he felt that both Elvis and Mary Jacobs were quote full of crap that's what he said to McLean that's what he said to McLean in the past and McLean said were you ever able

[00:56:04] to find evidence to put Brad Holder in Delphi at the time of the crime? No never found any physical evidence tying them to the crime so it doesn't sound like the defense was meeting its obligation to come up with relevant information of a material nature

[00:56:22] Not at all and I'm going to say this again this is about I mean when Murphy originally walked into Mary Jacobs' house and saw all this medication he said on the stand quote as soon as I saw it I gave up end quote

[00:56:38] and also indicated that in previous times Elvis quote pissed me off end quote because he thought that Elvis was just playing him about the spit comment he didn't think it was for real so it's like now unfortunately it looks like he's starting to torture himself

[00:56:52] over this but frankly from my perspective it sounds like this team did an adequate job running down these leads and they didn't get anywhere I don't think that was for lack of trying I also think these law enforcement officials who were part of the Odinism theory I mean

[00:57:08] they were working under the auspices of unified command they were doing their jobs they did their jobs and you know their job is not to make sure that they get a conviction their job is to go where the evidence leads them

[00:57:20] and if there's maybe a bit of smoke and they can't find a fire that's it I mean like I don't know what they were supposed to do really so I guess I just encouraging detectives to basically stick to your first guy and just because

[00:57:40] you worked a lot on them must mean that that must be the guy like I don't know it just seems like I don't really see what the issue is they looked into them and then they didn't find enough evidence and that's it I mean am I missing something?

[00:57:56] Yeah I don't think you are I think the point of police work is to investigate and not necessarily going for a specific outcome you just want truth and if the truth is this person you suspected there's not enough evidence maybe they didn't do it

[00:58:14] Let's be honest we're all human right we tend to think things that we are involved in are important if something goes down at my job here at the murder sheet that's very important to me if I'm involved in looking into a specific case

[00:58:28] and then that case you know like something happens in it that's important to me so I can imagine for a detective if there is a theory that you are suspect that you are specifically assigned to that becomes your every waking moment you're focused on running this down

[00:58:44] and figuring it out I think there might be a tendency to feel like that has outsized importance compared to everyone else and what they're doing and that's a natural human tendency I'm not criticizing them for that but that also doesn't mean that you have the right suspect

[00:59:00] or that you ever got to probable cause Absolutely not And I don't know what's happening there doesn't really matter and I'm going to interrupt you because a lot of what you're saying about Murphy also applies to the next witness who was Todd click

[00:59:16] Yes. Why don't you tell us all about Todd click Todd click is the former assistant police chief of rushville Indiana which is a town to I believe the south of Indianapolis somewhere down south I don't know I'm not I'm not from Indiana so it's

[00:59:30] it's not close to Delphi he was the sort of another person in this group along with Murphy and Farency unfortunately was murdered and he worked on this they essentially kind of came down to rushville to interview and to look into this kind of connection and he was setting

[00:59:52] up the sound equipment for them this is what came out today and they ended up he ended up kind of clicking with them no pun intended that was not intended to be a pun I'm just I'm really tired I was not a pun I just

[01:00:04] sometimes I'm really good at accidentally punning you know this don't give me that look but he ended up connecting with them and really liking you know I think like I think getting invested in this investigation and working on the angle with them so I kind of

[01:00:18] got the sense that they sort of became a unit after that and worked on this and he brought the local knowledge because Murphy and Farency were outsiders but he could say well here's what Elvis Fields is like or here's you know

[01:00:30] and he was the one who found the picture that showed that I guess Brad Holder knew Johnny Messer through some Vinlander community so Johnny Messer knows Elvis Fields so much has been made of this do you want to want to go on? You continue

[01:00:50] well let me just say one thing that kind of was a problem for me with what they were saying to me. A lot was made about Elvis mimicking Brad Holder's Facebook if you listen to our show you've listened to an episode with an excellent researcher named

[01:01:10] Thomas who's great and did a wonderful job he essentially took all of these allegedly mimicked facebook posts from both pages as many as he could find and put them side by side and just looked at them and his idea was like let's see if they're similar like is

[01:01:28] there something there where he you know because it's one thing to say like they're posting on each other's walls then you can say well they kind of know each other but if someone's just mimicking what does that even mean I've never heard of that and so what he

[01:01:40] found was that a lot of these photos that they're alleging to be mimicked are incredibly generic they just are they're not or they're not that similar they're like maybe in the same genre but they end up looking kind of different and I think when you're talking

[01:01:54] about something as you know if you want to say they both knew Johnny Messer by all means that's fine they'd mutual friends I think that's good enough you don't what what's with this mimic nonsense and frankly click and I thought this was smart of him

[01:02:08] I respected this he indicated I think at one point didn't he oh no was it was a clicker Murphy one of them they both kind of seem to like not really want to talk about the mimic aspect of it you know like it was

[01:02:20] kind of like well they know they do both know Messer and again I think that's correct I think Messer is fine but this mimic stuff it doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned and again to me the most important part of this witnesses testimony was a few

[01:02:38] questions at the end of cross examination where you ever able to place Brad Holder in Delphi time of the murder no any evidence linking Brad Holder to the crime scene well he like ruins but no evidence was found do you agree with the defense that it was a

[01:02:58] ritual murder no God Todd click believes that Abby and Libby made fun of the ritual the guys were performing and they got upset and killed them for it and it was brought out that click has earlier admitted to Davido of the Indiana State Police that

[01:03:16] there was no concrete evidence against his suspects it was just all circumstantial and Todd click has never seen the alibi evidence for a holder so it's so funny so many people were like so pissed off at us when we reported accurately that Todd click told us

[01:03:36] which he did that he did not believe in the ritual sacrifice element of this and you know that he still believed in the fact that the same people did the murders but that he didn't believe in that element and it just shows you like there

[01:03:50] is such a cult around these defense attorneys because even if you have basically almost the same views like Todd click if you're a little bit away from them on one specific issue then that is that's not okay and if you report

[01:04:04] on that then you know you are a target and you know you must be bad in line but what he said today completely corroborated exactly what he told us and let me just say this like I get what he's saying and I tend to agree with

[01:04:18] I tend to think that Todd click's version of events is a lot easier to digest for me than the ritual murder I think the ritual murder thing is something out of a stupid pulp novel I think things going wrong at the scene to me I can buy that

[01:04:34] a lot more I can certainly buy that a lot more so I appreciate Todd click's version more than theirs that being said what he described was that they're basically laughing at these guys in their ritual and like I don't know nothing what I've heard

[01:04:48] about the personalities of these two kids makes me think that first of all they would be like loudly mocking other people's rituals I mean I don't know maybe teenagers are teenagers right they can be snarky and maybe insensitive but like to the point where then they're like

[01:05:04] you know assaulted and killed it just I don't know like I think it's better than what the defense currently has but I still have some questions about that I guess or maybe problems with that I should say and again for me the key thing is

[01:05:20] he acknowledged there was no direct evidence that these people were actually involved in the crime so that means that the defense did not meet its obligation to present this material evidence that they needed in order to be allowed to discuss this at the trial right next witness

[01:05:40] awesome is Dave Vito who we just mentioned he's a detective with the Indiana State Police and this also marked a transition to Kagan Clyde yeah this is not something I had on my bingo card I know it was probably listed in stuff but I just kind of

[01:05:54] forgot about it so suddenly when they started talking about Kagan Clyde I was like am I like am I going to wake up and like I'm going to be in the you know Miami County Courthouse what's going to happen and also I wanted to mention that

[01:06:08] basically we're telling you what they said it is just further confirmation of stuff we reported on years ago yeah I don't want to like yeah and what's interesting is like the river search people would say oh do you really think the river search was related to the case

[01:06:26] so no we just reported it on our show because we like to lie yes of course we think that we don't think it we know it we know it we report stuff unless we know it we don't say something on the show unless we know it's true

[01:06:40] and there have been people who have doubted some of the stuff we reported about Kagan Clyde and his father Tony Clyde and all that stuff is confirmed in this testimony I was like I was like Rosie is just like

[01:06:56] like I mean it was so it was just wild yeah this direct examination of video was done by Brad Rosie yeah it was done by Brad Rosie and I was just like thank you because this is a lot of stuff we've brought out to light and

[01:07:08] again we don't mess around with putting out stuff like it was just I don't know I think so many people do that everyone just assumes that you're doing the same thing but we're not we're actually confirming things before we put them out there

[01:07:22] you wouldn't have reported on the river search unless we knew what it was about yeah we don't want to get something of that magnitude wrong it was just a weird trip down memory lane though because you just I'm not used to these lawyers talking about Kagan Clyde

[01:07:36] so basically should I begin hit it yeah Vito confirmed that Libby German was communicating with Anthony Schatz on snapchat and Anthony Schatz of course was an account used by Kagan Clyde it is possible that Kagan Clyde was not the only one using the Anthony Schatz name

[01:07:58] some of those communications could at least in theory have come from Kagan's father Tony Clyde and this is what Vito said and this is what we said and this is what we said then there was a detail that I don't believe we knew which is that

[01:08:16] Kagan Clyde's friend I don't think we named him on the show I don't think we named him which I won't but his friend appeared in photos with a firearm that was not recovered and this firearm with a Smith & Wesson 40 caliber and of course the

[01:08:34] unspent round at the murder scene was also a 40 caliber so that yeah I mean that's notable I mean it's notable because let me just say like why is did Rosie get the wrong script they're bringing him up as another third party suspect to discuss

[01:08:52] I should have mentioned that thank you Rosie's basically saying doesn't Kagan Clyde kind of look guilty guys what do you think so he talks about Kagan Clyde having much many devices that have child sexual abuse materials on them they bring up the Kagan Clyde and his father Tony

[01:09:14] went to Las Vegas right after the murders on a pre-planned trip and at some point Kagan's father Tony offered to pay Kagan Clyde money to stay in Las Vegas Kagan Clyde did not have a good alibi for the date of the murders he kept changing his story

[01:09:34] but ultimately the police were able to prove that Kagan Clyde's phone was being used at his residence on the day of the murder on canal street in Peru and in the same household Tony Clyde's phone was also being used in that household on the day of the murders

[01:09:54] Rosie said you had concerns about his father's involvement and Vito said correct and I should I should note that Rosie did not hold back about Tony Klein he went into his violent history his history of abusing women let me go into this do it on August 21st of 2020

[01:10:14] Vito had an interview with Tony Klein at the Purdue Indiana State police post was it Peru that's why I have in my notes what do you have I think he said per do there's no I'm tired too he indicated that he was aware

[01:10:30] that Tony Klein had a history of violence he was aware that Tony Klein had assaulted a child by shoving his head in the toilet we actually interviewed that young man yeah wonder yeah just an awesome grown up now who is you know just

[01:10:46] talked about the trauma he went through but as you know there's a Tony Klein holding a shotgun on on Kagan's mother yeah that's something Kagan mentioned and also that Tony Klein had a bad leg and some people theorize that bridge guy had a bad leg because of

[01:11:02] a limb yeah and one problem I will say though with Tony Klein with bridge guy is that he has a much higher voice than you would expect and does not hire does not now listen bridge guys voice that's

[01:11:14] not really like I don't know how much they're going to use that in trial because it's not a lot of words so I don't think they can do like a vocal fingerprint or whatever but he does not sound like bridge guy to me so while kegan Klein's

[01:11:26] child sexual abuse materials case was pending he reached out to the united states police about the delphi murders and they interviewed him in august of twenty two at grissom air force base and during that interview he told them a story you want to share that

[01:11:46] his story was that on the day of the murders he and his father Tony Klein drove to delphi indiana from peru in a red Jeep and they parked at the cemetery near the murder site and that Tony got out left for a while

[01:12:08] when he came back he was covered in blood and he told kegan that they quote something like they had a good time and then they left and then they drove over the bridge over the Wabash in peru in their red Jeep that we previously reported about

[01:12:24] and that they threw that kegan threw a cell phone into the Wabash and Tony threw a knife so this is why the Wabash was searched they were looking for this particular knife and this particular and to be clear Andrew Ackie the attorney for kegan Klein at the time

[01:12:42] arranged a lot of this he arranged a whole meeting with kegan Klein and investigators and what's interesting is rosy kept on referring to kegan Klein's attorney and of course kegan Klein's attorney as you say was Andrew Ackie who was the former law

[01:12:58] partner of Brad rosy you know who he is come on he was in your profile episode man um you know they did the search they couldn't find anything they also looked at traffic cams along the route that kegan said he and his father were driving on

[01:13:14] the day of the murders and no red Jeep appeared in any of that footage which seems to disprove the story that kegan Klein told that and the fact that Tony does not sound like bridge guy and kegan is larger than bridge guy and the fact

[01:13:34] that their phone seemed to be in operation in their house on the day of the murders would be substantive evidence pointing away from them we've also said that the wall bash river search had nothing to do with the arrest of Richard Allen a lot

[01:13:52] of people believe that it did but it didn't and this is more confirmation of that it just didn't not everything's connected it the other thing just came up at that time and as we've said so many times kegan Klein and Tony Klein were a primary focus

[01:14:08] of the delphi murders investigation for a while doesn't mean they're guilty doesn't mean they're guilty but that's what the police were doing and that's our job as journalists is not to just sit here and like make stuff up and tell you our opinions

[01:14:22] it is to figure out what the police are doing and tell you that which we get ideally yes so it was again surreal I think Rosie made some good points there is a lot around kegan I don't know how good of a third party suspect

[01:14:40] I think he's certainly a significantly better third party suspect than the oneness but it doesn't really seem like there was any evidence tying him to the crime scene I haven't been listening to him talk about kegan Klein I felt like I was

[01:14:54] getting a glimpse into an alternate reality where they started off by focusing on kegan Klein and not mentioning odinism at all and I think that would have been a more successful venue for them you know they did talk about

[01:15:10] this was a bit of a bold move by Rosie and I was kind of interested in it I'm not saying he I'm sure he didn't intend it this way and I certainly don't know what's in his head but it was almost like a bit of a taunting thing

[01:15:22] it's like you guys try to find a connection between the Klein's and the Allen's didn't you Richard Allen's wife is from Peru and of course Richard Allen himself is from Mexico, Indiana which is right next door and so was there a connection

[01:15:36] people have often pointed out that they used to live near each other I think it's on like 2nd avenue or they may have lived near each other at one time and that you know kind of and what Vito said is that some people locally

[01:15:48] say that they know that they knew each other but he has not been able to prove some sort of significant connection and there's no digital records that indicate any extensive contact it is also potentially interesting because if even after the arrest of Richard Allen investigators still believe

[01:16:06] Keegan Klein might be involved which is why they'd be looking for a connection that's a decent at least beginning place for an argument that maybe that's a start for a third party suspect yes that's a start and frankly I always wondered

[01:16:22] if they didn't go for that because they were worried he did know him but that's just my take I mean like I don't know it's I think the fact that they brought it up today sort of indicates that they're probably confident

[01:16:32] that he didn't because that would be really risky otherwise but the problem with Keegan is Keegan as we you know from the listening to the show he lies a lot he's not as you know he's not reliable it sounds like he strung everybody along

[01:16:46] with this river search nothing was found and he didn't there was no evidence that he was even there in Delphi that day in fact contrary it looked like he was in Peru so again much better and again I

[01:16:58] thought Rosie was kind of on fire here and it wasn't just because I'm interested in the Keegan Klein stuff it was because I was like this is all clicking but I don't feel like it's still not great I don't because there's just too much wrong with Keegan

[01:17:14] but anyways that was kind of a fascinating look back and I was like I felt like we were much younger then and then the other defense attorney Jennifer OJ stood up and basically said hey let's talk about Ron Logan for a few minutes

[01:17:30] and that was just like a brief weird interlude where she was like Ron Logan he had a what about that search warrant? and hey did you know he had a sweater in his laundry room was that what she said am I making that up

[01:17:42] or like that was like it was the same color as something that pretty much was kind of weird I bet a lot of us have one of those in our laundry rooms Jennifer they really didn't go into Ron Logan at all it's so funny

[01:17:56] because people always want to like Ron Logan is one of the contenders and these guys are just they don't want to go into Ron Logan at all I don't think that's exciting I was surprised they went into Keegan as much as they did

[01:18:10] but Logan definitely got the short end of the stick in this one I just added just while we're on like a look back in time more of a fun brief interlude can you tell everyone what you did in the middle of the courtroom which was adorable but

[01:18:24] also very funny I was trying to avoid saying that so you have to understand that Kevin Kevin and I are kind of opposites in some way we're very much the same person in most ways but I am terrible at time management and often running late

[01:18:38] to things and Kevin is very very attempts to be punctual and in fact gets really stressed out when he's not and it was well past lunchtime we're finally released for launch but it's going to be a shorter lunch break because we spend all that time listening

[01:18:52] to this expert witness and I didn't know if there was a name for them but you've seen those like plastic columns they're like lined up in rows and they might have a ribbon connecting them and these are used to basically control crowds and there was one of these

[01:19:12] set up in the courtroom and part of it was in an inconvenient area that made egress a challenge and so a number of people would go underneath them and I went underneath it being very hungry and I did it poorly and

[01:19:30] I caused a bunch of it to knock down and you said I didn't see this but you said none other than Stacey Deener one of the prosecutors saw this and was appalled well I probably I mean I was you said you apologize to her on my behalf

[01:19:48] well you were in one of your weird frenzies where you weren't even like you were just like flailing around trying to hook it up and it was obvious that you weren't really fully connected with the task at hand so then I ended up setting it

[01:20:02] back up oh my god well it's just we're just awkward people if you've hung out with us at one of these things you know there's a group of people that kind of come to these and it's nice to see them and kind of connect when we're waiting because

[01:20:18] but if you've done that you know you know what we're like Nick talked a little bit about geofencing do you want to talk about that? He said geofencing is not an accurate science and because of that they don't even use it in PCAs Yeah that's important to know

[01:20:38] you can't use it to get to probable cause because it's so unreliable that we could be talking about a few meters away or like a thousand meters away and that's a big difference And he said let's grant the motion now not to talk about geofencing

[01:20:52] in the trial but they can come up with a reason that a particular bit of geofencing is reliable then of course they could talk about that and then the next that was the end of it for the defense presentation and then it was prosecutor McLean's turn

[01:21:08] to call witnesses and the first witness he called was Chris Cecil he's a first sergeant with the Indiana State Police he's actually the task force commander for the internet crimes against children task force and he's also a witness that we saw in the Kagan Klein

[01:21:24] Yeah again echoes of Kagan Klein and let's just be clear the Kagan Klein investigation started out as the Delphi murders investigation that's why all the same people are working on it and that's why they brought it up in this context and so it flowed from one another doesn't

[01:21:38] mean that Kagan Klein has anything to do with the Delphi murders but he was uncovered what his conversations with Liberty were uncovered and that led to him being busted eventually So one thing that is a little bit different between the prosecution witnesses and the defense witnesses

[01:21:58] is that usually it was pretty easy to tell why the prosecution witnesses were called and this witness was called because he extracted some information from Liberty Germans phone including the video on the phone taken of the encounter with bridge guy and so he knows exactly

[01:22:20] what time that was taken and it was taken beginning at 213 and 51 seconds and so the reason that was is crucial is because if you establish the time that happened you get a pretty good sense of when the girls lives were taken and if you

[01:22:40] can prove the girls lives were taken sometime between 230 and 330 and if Brad Holder has a very good alibi at that time then that's more reason not to look at him as a viable suspect So not only did he say yes the phones video was at 213 but he even

[01:23:02] pointed out that this particular phone thanks to Apple health data is able to track movement. Now it doesn't track movement like if you're in a car but if you're walking it tracks that and he indicated that this phone was moving until 2 32 p.m. and it did not move

[01:23:26] after that time so it indicated that was where it was found underneath Liberty shoe underneath Abigail's body. So once it stops moving it sounds like so the obvious conclusion is that the girls were taken to where they met their tragic end and did not leave that area afterwards

[01:23:52] so then there was a cause examination by Jennifer and she said well since it doesn't track movement in cars isn't it possible that they slipped down to an access road and hopped in a car and maybe went somewhere

[01:24:10] and then came back later. Was that what she was suggesting? That was what she was suggesting and then she got off on a confusing I did not understand this at all about text messages and eye messages and at some point her hypothesis was that

[01:24:32] essentially the phone had to be turned off for these messages not to be received at a certain time and then the phone was turned back on at 4 33 a.m. and that means that someone else must have been but she expressed that in a very confusing way and McLean

[01:24:48] didn't understand what she was trying to get at the judge didn't understand Cecil didn't understand the judge didn't understand She could have had that razzle-dazzle moment where I think a lot of people would have been like whoa

[01:25:00] but I think it kind of got lost in some of the questioning and it was like an agonizingly long amount of time where people were just trying to figure out what was going on seemingly and then Rollin Purdy was called to the stand

[01:25:14] and he was a Canadian state police investigator who at some point indicated that he saw what the defense describes as the mimicked crime scene photo on Brad Holder's Facebook page he now said that Holder denied being on the Facebook page and all he is

[01:25:32] sure of, all Purdy is sure of is that he saw the image in Holder's file and he's not sure what the origin was so that was that testimony Yeah Baldwin kind of tried to indicate that like oh you must be saying this

[01:25:48] because it's inconvenient for you to say otherwise and you were put up to it and I mean it seemed like a pretty honest mistake to make you're looking at basically an image of a Facebook post versus looking at it actually on the Facebook so I can understand

[01:26:04] why you would make that mistake That's just my take And then the last witness of the day was a man I'd never heard of I literally when they brought up a new name sometimes I'm like in this context

[01:26:18] when I'm like sleep deprived and we've been there for hours I was like are they just making it who is this but he's actually an incredibly important witness Name is Pat Cicero and he was the prosecution's expert and it was kind of

[01:26:32] interesting to see kind of like this mirror image we saw what the defense thought an expert was and then we got to see this expert who actually is an expert he was the chief of detectives at LaPorte County Sheriff's Department for 20 years he is a certified

[01:26:46] crime scene investigator he has been to specialized training and skills in blood splatter patterns he teaches blood stain analysis he is testified in 32 criminal cases in a variety of counties And he never said stuff like this proves the Brad Holder didn't do it

[01:27:08] or this proves Richard Allen did it he consistently talked about this indicates that this tends to be that he's not trying to it was just like here's the facts and we should caution you that some of this testimony is upsetting because he gets into a description

[01:27:30] of the last moments of these girls and it was disturbing to hear and many people including you were tearing up yeah I was crying it was like I'm going to start crying again I think talking about it because I don't know it's

[01:27:46] it's just really bad so if you want to I guess skip ahead a few minutes that would be fine so in February 12th of 2024 Mr. Cicero was asked to examine materials in this case he received electronic files and he also published mortem documents diagrams

[01:28:08] he actually also went to the crime scene and conducted tests there he examined clothing that was discovered with person he described as Miss Williams he studied photos of the blood stains he he indicated he believes the so-called f symbol on the tree looks like an upside down L

[01:28:30] he indicated it was on the northeast side of the tree and it is 3 by 7 inches I believe yeah and it was made up of several different blood stains so he indicated that after Liberty German received her first injury she was still mobile and moving yeah let me

[01:28:54] let me so she was I guess cut on the neck three times but after her first injury she was still moving and what his hypothesis is based on where the print is and they tested it out with someone who's the same height as Liberty and they think that

[01:29:18] it was her bloody handprint on the tree essentially that she put it with her pinky up leaning against the tree indicated that it sounds like she based on where the pools are the pools of blood she I guess staggered a bit and then I guess like

[01:29:42] sat down at some point before she bled out the reason her hand was bloody he indicated that after someone receives a wound of that magnitude and starts bleeding it's very common for them to put their hand over the wound to try to staunch the bleeding after Abby

[01:30:04] received her wound on the other hand she did not move again he indicated that as we all know Abby was dressed in Libby's clothes at the time of her injury there was very heavy blood saturation to those clothes so this people been wondering was she dressed

[01:30:30] in those clothes after she was killed or before she was killed and because of the blood saturation Mr. Cicero believes that she was wearing those clothes at the time she was killed he indicated there was a huge amount of blood flowing from down Libby's shoulders and neck

[01:30:50] he also indicated that he believed the sticks that were placed on the body were there to obscure and hide the bodies and he said someone from across the creek would have trouble seeing the bodies with the sticks on them and as Anya mentioned he showed by

[01:31:12] the hand with the pinky up he indicated how that could lead to leave that mark on the tree and so he said all evidence in his opinion indicates that it was not painted on there by someone trying to leave an Odinist symbol or any symbol of that kind

[01:31:34] it was just a last sad gesture from Mr. Germans I just feel I feel so badly for their families having to hear that and I just think about they were only 14 and 13 and thinking about what they had to have gone through it's just it just hit me

[01:32:09] hearing him describe that I'm sorry I just it's okay it was very upsetting we were sitting very near the families and it was very upsetting this whole thing is just it's going to hear a lot worse at the trial if there is a trial

[01:32:37] and you know it's just I'm just gonna make an observation Richard Allen when he gets really agitated it's usually when they're talking about those kids I'm not even drawing a conclusion for that it seems to bother him too it seems to really bother him he's agitated

[01:32:59] he's moving more he's when they're talking about Brad Holder and they're talking about Patrick Westfall and all this other stuff that is very little to do with anything as far as I'm concerned it doesn't seem to bother him as much and again

[01:33:17] I'm not drawing a conclusion based on that but it's something to note and that was basically it there was an important development I do note of course there was at the end of the session Judge Gull indicated that she was going to vacate the safekeeping order in place

[01:33:39] of the custody of the Carroll County Sheriff and there was one more thing he's gonna go to Cass County they're not gonna have him in Carroll County he's gonna go to Cass County he's in the custody I think we all expected that to happen this time around

[01:33:57] that seemed like it was a well-readed argument by Rosie then there was kind of a meeting I want to say he was grinning while he walked out he was smiling that was the first time I've seen him hold a smile except towards his family

[01:34:13] but I should note this by the time the blood expert started talking his family members Janice Allen his mother and his wife Kathy Allen had left their seats and did not return so they missed him being released to Cass County because they seemingly did not want to hear

[01:34:33] an expert who is going to talk about how these two girls were slaughtered and again Mr. Cicero was a very impressive witness and then before we conclude I wanted to mention that at the very end there was a meeting that looked tense from a distance

[01:34:47] it was all of the attorneys gathered at the bench in front of Judge Gull and they indicated that they would need to arrange a time to meet to discuss the issue they were discussing whatever that was whatever that was we were just going to lie on that bench

[01:35:05] but we don't know and we'll keep you updated if there's another hearing it might just be one of those in chambers things I don't know who knows we'll keep an eye thanks everyone for listening thanks for putting up with our late releases we've been so busy and internet

[01:35:23] can be a little bit iffy up here and in addition to that we're kind of running on empty right now so we just appreciate you supporting us sorry for crying there but I just want to say we really appreciate all of you and all your really kind comments

[01:35:39] and whatever in our facebook group and kind emails we've been getting and it just means a lot because this was yeah this was you know it's nice to some nice people who live up here some nice people go to these things and it's nice to connect with everybody

[01:35:57] but you're never that far away from remembering what it's about which is just this awful nightmare and I think it's really important that we honor that and keep it in mind at all times that it's that's what it is like it's not

[01:36:14] it's not anything good it's just something awful thank you all for listening thank you 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 gmail.com if you have actionable information

[01:36:35] about an unsolved crime please report it to the appropriate authorities special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee who composed the music for the murder sheet and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered

[01:37:13] you can join the murder sheet discussion group on facebook we mostly focus our time on research and reporting so we're not on social media much we do try to check our email address and we also have a website where we can find the information about your research

[01:37:31] we do try to check our e-mail account but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages Thanks again for listening