Category: part one

Deep Dive: The Delphi Murders, Part 1

The Monon High Bridge, the abandoned railroad trestle where Libby captured photos, video, and audio files on her phone just before she and Abby went missing.

It sounds like fiction.

Little is known about exactly what happened that day on the Monon High Bridge, but the few facts we do know are so incredible and disturbing that you could almost be forgiven for thinking this case couldn’t possibly be real. Sadly, the beginning is pure Grimm’s fairy tale: Two girls walking alone in the woods encounter a wolf in human’s clothing. The middle is more of a dystopian techno-thriller: Realizing they’re in trouble, one of the doomed heroines uses her phone to capture clues vital to solving her own murder.

But what happened that day to Libby and Abby is tragically real, and the end of their story hasn’t been written yet.

February 13, 2017: Friends Liberty “Libby” German (14) and Abigail “Abby” Williams (13) woke up late that morning after a sleepover at Libby’s house the previous night. Although the eighth graders would have normally been in school, all students in the Delphi Community School Corporation had that day off because both the previous Friday (February 10th) and Monday (February 13th) had been designated “Snow Make-Up Days” at the beginning of the academic year. However, since the winter had been mild and the allotted snow days hadn’t been used, the girls ended up with a four-day weekend instead.

And they were trying to make the most of it.

After spending Sunday practicing their softball swings, painting pictures in Libby’s room with Abby’s art supplies, and giggling late into the night, the girls were ready that next morning to start a new adventure. Libby, like many children, lived in a multigenerational household. Her home included her grandparents Mike and Becky Patty (who were also her legal guardians), father Derrick German, and older sister Kelsi. After Derrick made the girls breakfast, Libby asked her grandmother for permission to go to the Monon High Bridge Trail, a hiking spot just outside of Delphi’s city limits. Becky agreed but told the girls they would need to arrange a ride.

At first, it looked as if the girls would stuck at the house after all. Everyone in Libby’s busy family already had plans for the day. Then fate cruelly intervened.

When initially approached, Libby’s older sister Kelsi had refused the girls’ request, explaining that she was leaving to help her boyfriend clean a truck he hoped to sell before eventually heading to work. She already had a full day ahead of her and just didn’t have time to take the younger girls anywhere.

It was then, in a particularly heartbreaking twist, that Kelsi’s conscience got the better of her. The two sisters were close, and Kelsi felt guilty about letting Libby down. So she wound up relenting, telling her younger sibling that she could drop the girls off at the trails if they could arrange another ride home.

That decision must haunt Kelsi to this very day.

After securing the promise of a ride home from Libby’s dad, Derrick, the girls were on their way. Kelsi drove them to the Monon High Bridge, dropping them off near the trail’s entrance around 1:30 pm.

As she watched Libby and Abby walk away, talking between themselves, Kelsi had no way of knowing she would never see either girl alive again.


Please return for Part Two on Saturday. In the meantime, if you have any information pertaining to the murders of Libby German and Abby Williams- or the social media profile “anthony_shots” – please call the Delphi Homicide Investigation Tip Line (844-459-5786), the Indiana State Police (1-800-382-7537), or the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department (765-564-2413). You can also contact Abbyandlibbytip@cacoshrf.com.

The Murder of Amanda Van Scyoc, Part One: Case Summary

Amanda Van Scyoc was just eighteen in the fall of 2001, but she’d already experienced a great deal in her short life. The Boonville teen had fallen in a with a criminal element, been implicated in an auto theft, wound up on probation, become a narcotics informant, and testified in court against ex-boyfriend Chad Leroy Goodwin, resulting in a robbery conviction. Still, Amanda was young. She had the rest of her life to make amends for her mistakes.

But someone had other plans.

According to her mother, Linda Warner, Amanda was last seen alive on the morning of November 9th. She told police Amanda had a second interview at WalMart later on that day, despite already being employed at Schnuck’s grocery store. (It’s unclear whether police ever verified this information with the retailer.) Warner further claimed that, after making sure Amanda was awake and preparing for the appointment, she then left for work, leaving her daughter alone in the residence they shared with her husband, John.

A few hours later, Linda reportedly called home to make sure Amanda had actually gone to the interview, but no one answered the telephone. Seemingly satisfied by this lack of a response, she hung up without speaking to anyone, even though Amanda’s stepfather was allegedly home at the time.

Hours passed and Amanda didn’t come home. Then days passed and she still didn’t come home. At the time, John and Linda discussed notifying police but decided against it. After all, they said, they didn’t want to do anything to endanger Amanda’s probation. So they remained silent, even though Linda claimed her daughter had received threats in connection with her work as a police informant. “She had spoken of those to us. She was really scared at times to come home, she had said get your gun and keep it close and lock the doors.”

However, police would later recover clues that would bring all of the couple’s statements into question.

On November 13th, two deer hunters discovered Amanda’s body in nearby Yankeetown. She had been strangled to death, her nude body wrapped in a carpet and tossed in a rural area locally regarded as a “drug hotspot.” Amanda was known to have frequented the location, but Indiana State Police detective Marvin Heilman cast doubt on the theory that’s where she was killed. “We believe she was killed four to five days before she was found and that location of the crime we haven’t been able to pinpoint. She was not killed where she was found.”

At the time her body was discovered, all of Amanda’s belongings, including her purse, were still at the home she shared with her mother and stepfather. After an autopsy revealed the presence of John Warner’s bodily fluid on her corpse, he eventually admitted to having sex with his then-barely legal stepdaughter but claimed their “relationship” had been consensual. Although he denied knowing anything about the teen’s death, both his wife Linda and Amanda’s father, Brad Van Scyoc, stated they had been told by police that Warner had failed his polygraph test.

Despite the evidence, Linda Warner publicly defended her husband John’s innocence. The couple stayed together until his death in an automobile accident in 2004, when his car crossed the center line and struck another vehicle.

No one was ever charged in connection with Amanda’s murder. Her case remains officially unsolved.

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact:
Indiana State Police: Evansville Division
1-812-867-2079 or 1-800-852-3970


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