What were some of the questions you were still hoping to answer coming into writing the book?
AINE CAIN: The big one would be what on earth would compel a middle-aged retail manager to wake up one day and do something so horrible? Why? I don't think that's something that anyone's really going to be able to provide other than Richard Allen. Unfortunately, frankly, he may not know why. My own personal view of this is that there are certain people—and they're quite rare, I would imagine—who are doing things in a relatively normal law-abiding way, but maybe harbor secret fantasies about doing something horrible and one day decide to act upon that.
KEVIN GREENLEE: One thing that bothered me about this case since the beginning was how mysterious and secretive the investigators were about it. Why did they do that? Them taking that course of action really seemed to fuel quite a bit of conspiratorial fervor. I've come to understand that they kept so much secret because they were trying to protect the case. And I think that if they had been more open with the public early on, we never would've had a conviction in the case.
How do you think the public interest around this case influenced the outcome?
CAIN: There was certainly a lot of public interest and social media interest, and we try to categorize different motivations for that interest. I do feel like a lot of people were interested in the case because they found it extremely heartbreaking that these two girls go out for a walk one day, are on Snapchat having fun and then get murdered. That could have been my daughters, that could have been my friends, that could have been me. And I think that is something that was a very sincere and positive motivation. But unfortunately, a very loud minority was more about, “I really want to know all the horrible details about everything basically for morbid curiosity's sake.” There's a lot of this sort of thing in this case where people came in and they weren't hearing a lot from law enforcement, so they were like, “I'll be the sleuth.” I think any high-profile case nowadays has the potential to become a Delphi case.
What do you think of those armchair detectives who have bubbled up due to the rise in true crime coverage?
CAIN: I mean, I understand it. But you shouldn't try to do that. There's a lot of rules that police have to follow in terms of evidence and the defendant's rights that are important and kind of fundamental to our system. I think what fueled that was the fact that Libby had the presence of mind to film the killer on her phone. We see this image of the Bridge Guy as he became known, and I think people were tantalized by that. It was like, if we can just squint hard enough or fill in those pixels, we'll see his face, and we will know. But the problem is, people would just throw out their own suspects and there were suspect wars. It was very angry sports fans going at it arguing. Some people just became full-blown conspiracy theorists.
GREENLEE: It wasn't so much the reporters being captured, it was the defense attorneys and they were captured by social media. I think they really became enraptured by some of the conspiracy theories out there. And I think it really influenced how they handled this case. It put them in an echo chamber, which made it difficult for them to really accurately assess the strengths and weaknesses of their case. And I think all of that was to the detriment of their client.
CAIN: I think it's really important to approach a case like Delphi with a lot of respect and trying to tamp down on the speculation. Let's maybe not accuse people of murder without seeing some evidence. We need to do better as a true crime community of policing our own so that stuff like this doesn't happen again. The stakes are so high. This really deadly serious, and I think people need to take it more seriously.
Do you think Libby's inclination to take that video came from her being into crime shows and having that knowledge that it might be smart to document this interaction, or she's just a teenager who's always on her phone?
CAIN: I think Libby just had that sense. She was savvy. One of the more disturbing things in this case is, you can hear in the video how scared they are. It's subtle, but you can hear the high-pitched voices, you can hear the breathing heavily. I think they're reacting to this strange male presence coming at them who's not acting in a normal way. At some point, one of the girls greets him, it's almost trying to placate this threatening presence and almost like, if I act normal, maybe he will. And unfortunately that's not what happened. But I think both of them contributed to the solving of this case. Libby by taking the video and Abby, the phone ended up beneath her. So it's like, did she hide the phone from their killer? Law enforcement speaking to us about this were very adamant that they [Abby and Libby] gave us this clue and it was up to us to run with that.
GREENLEE: Libby taking that video was absolutely crucial, but we can't underestimate the value of what Abby did because one of the last things Abby did in her life was she hid that phone with that video with her body. That meant that the killer Richard Allen did not spot that phone. And I think if he had spotted that phone and if he had taken it away with him, it is very likely the arrest never would've been made. They were both heroes for what they did in their last moments.
Richard Allen’s name did not come up when you two were covering the case in real time. What have you since uncovered about why it took so long for that arrest to be made?
CAIN: This volunteer, a woman named Kathy Shank, was a force of nature in Carroll County. She dedicated her entire career to helping the kids there. When she found out two kids were murdered, she came in and volunteered a ton of time. She's going through all the paperwork, she's filing and organizing, and she comes across this tip sheet with this kind of mysterious man who was putting himself on the trails that day, and she realizes, “I've gone through everything. I know the names of everybody who was a witness on the trail, and I don't recognize this man's name. Something's very wrong.” So she brings it to the detectives and they immediately say, “This is huge. We missed this.”
How does something like that go unnoticed?
CAIN: This is one of those things where I think the original sin of the investigation was the fact that so many people wanted to help so quickly. That sounds like something you'd want. But the thing is, they [police] were getting inundated with this fire hose of information and all of these different agencies from around the state are sending in their people. Sometimes the communication wasn't great. Law enforcement figures tend to have a bit of a type A personality, where they want to go out and do it. But the problem with that is, if you're not following the chain of command and you're not really reporting back or you're only going after the interesting leads, rather than clearing things in methodical ways, it's very easy for stuff to get lost. I don't think this was so much as "Delphi was not equipped to handle it," as more of "the road to hell was paved with good intentions." It was just a management nightmare. I don't think they deserved the blame for what happened in the early days. It's a lesson for law enforcement in terms of case management, in terms of dealing with these high-profile cases.
What more did you learn about while working on the book about why there were never any motions made about Allen’s mental health at the time?
CAIN: Richard Allen confessed to wanting to rape somebody, a woman or a girl, that day. I believe he was sort of an opportunistic predator, where he was going to attack whoever he got in a position where he felt he could attack them. And unfortunately, that was the girls. He did behave in sort of bizarre ways in prison, but he was very calculated. He would do things to get attention. He seems to be able to control it, [and] you can't control psychosis. He was malingering to a point.
GREENLEE: And that's almost even more frightening because, in a way, it would be reassuring if the monsters amongst us were really obvious and really easy to see, if they walked around carrying red flags. There is something rather terrifying about the fact that people have these impulses, they have these twisted sexual desires and violent streaks in them, and they can still get up and go to work and we don't even notice it. I find that terrifying.
CAINE: I think it's important for people to follow the evidence in these cases. It's not always going to be the guy who seems the worst. It may just be the evidence points to someone who is on the surface normal, and you have to go with that.
The confession calls are really fascinating. What's your take on them?
CAIN: He just sounds like he's trying to tell his wife something and she's not listening to him. He seems hurt by the fact that his wife and mother just did not want to hear it. And not only that, but didn't really express any sort of curiosity in what he was trying to tell them. I think he was really desperately looking for that unconditional love of “please accept me even if I did this.” I think he thought he was going to get a much different reception. I think he was blindsided by this, and I think I honestly do think that that contributed to some of his really kind of chaotic behavior. It raises some questions about the nature of unconditional love.
You’ve covered so many cases on your podcast over the years. What have you seen about why criminals confess?
GREENLEE: To a certain extent, just in life, we often feel lonely. We want to feel a connection. We want to feel understood. And when you commit such a violent act, that even further cuts you off from society. There's a strong desire to tell someone and have them tell you, “Even though you did this, you're still okay. I still love you.” And I think certainly in the Richard Allen matter, that's what he was doing. His confessions came in casual phone calls to his loved ones, calls that he made himself, and they certainly weren't pressuring him to say this. In fact, they were telling him, “Shut up, don't say this.” I think in this case, it was motivated by a desire for him to say, “Here is the worst about me. Do you love me?”
CAIN: This man was confessing to anyone who would listen. He tried to confess to the warden and the warden just blew him off. He kept on confessing to his prison psychologist, Dr. Monica Walla, and she was telling him, “Talk to your lawyers about your case. I don't want to be involved.” Some of his confessions were more vague, but there was at least one that went into a lot of detail, including things that truly only the killer would know. That's one good tell. When Kegan Klein, one of the other people who came up as a suspect, confessed in this same case, he got a bunch of stuff [wrong]. And they're looking at all the surveillance footage and they're like, “No, you didn't.” A good confession is something that lines up with the facts and isn't coerced in any way
How would you describe the effect that this crime has had on the Delphi community over the years?
GREENLEE: It has really traumatized that community. It has changed the way they look at life. It made them a lot more wary, and I think it's also taught them something about human nature. The town has been besieged by people who come into the community and are just trying to exploit what happened to make up false stories about what happened in order to profit. This is a community that has been hurt by the murders. I remember one day after a court hearing, we're trudging back to our car. We must've been looking tired. Two women run out of a store that we're passing and they give us a plate of cookies and say, “Here, these are for you.” That's what the town is.
What's something you think the public doesn't know about Abby and Libby they'll learn from the book?
CAIN: I really think people will be captured by the bond between these girls. It was very strong and they complemented each other in a really significant way. Libby was the outgoing one, very smart, very academically gifted, especially science and math. And she was going to stick up for her friends. She was the girl in the group where they would all go to her with their problems and she'd give them some really good advice. She was wise beyond her years in that way and was kind of a firecracker.
Abby was a lot quieter. She wasn't necessarily super shy, but she was someone who she was going to open up a lot more once you got to know her. She and Libby basically brought out those different sides to one another. And in the end, they did not leave each other. That bond really did last until the end. And that was something that was incredibly heartbreaking but also somewhat beautiful.
