DELPHI Snapchat murder victim Libby German saved lives by taking a video of the suspect before she was killed, a cold case expert has said.
Teenagers Libby, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were found dead in 2017 after going for a walk on the Delphi Historic Trails in Indiana.
Libby, 14, captured the video of a man known as "Bridge Guy" who was seen walking towards them moments before they were found dead.
But despite having an image of the suspect and an audio recording of his voice, it took over five years to identify him.
CVS employee Richard Allen, 50, was charged with two counts of murder in the killings of the teen girls last year.
He denied involvement in the girls' deaths and pleaded not guilty.
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His trial was scheduled for January – but earlier this week, his lawyers sensationally withdrew from the case amid a security breach as grim crime scene photos were released to the public.
Nic Edwards, host of True Crime Garage, has followed the bizarre case since its first day.
Since the beginning of the investigation, he believed the teenagers' killer was the man in Libby's video where the suspect's voice was also captured.
And he said the teen's quick thinking saved lives.
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Speaking to The Sun, the cold case expert said: "I don’t believe that somebody who does something like this would never do it again.
“And I’m not saying they would absolutely do it again but once you do something this horrific you're always capable of doing it again.
“I think Libby potentially may have saved some lives by capturing pictures of him on her cell phone, capturing his voice.
“Because when it was released to the public at first, it was 'this is a guy seen at the trails we would like to speak to him, he may have been a witness, he may have seen something.
“I knew immediately this was likely a suspect and he's probably the killer.
“Had she not filmed him, had he got away with it, he would have thought he’d have the ability to do this again undetected."
Nic said the suspect wouldn't have realised his photograph had been taken until he was "out of the woods, cleaned all the blood off him and went home to watch TV".
"I would have loved seeing the look on his face when that image popped up on his TV," he said.
“I really think she saved some lives by having the bravery and the intelligence to hold up her cell phone, capture his image and then the smartness to conceal her phone and put it in her pocket and record his voice."
It was February 13, 2013, when the two girls went missing after going on a hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail in the town of Delphi.
They were dropped off near the abandoned bridge by Libby’s sister Kelsi.
The last contact the girls made was when Libby posted two photos on Snapchat.
Their disappearance sparked a frenzied search before they were found dead the following day.
Nic said locals initially believed the girls were either at someone else's house or one of them may have sustained an injury in the woods.
"They were supposed to be picked up around 3.30 that afternoon and the family was concerned because they were trying to get in touch with Libby on her cell phone and they couldn’t," he said.
“They were not in full panic mode at that point.
“It was an incredibly horrific and tragic ending and I don't think anybody could even fathom this was a possibility."
Days after the bodies of the teens were discovered, investigators released an eerie video from Libby's phone showing a man wearing jeans, and a blue jacket walking towards them before saying: "Guys, down the hill."
The girls' murder made headlines across the world as it remained a mystery with multiple theories suggesting different culprits.
One of the people quizzed by cops was Ronald Logan, who owned the property where the girls' bodies were found.
A search warrant leaked by the Murder Sheet podcast revealed his property was searched after the girls' deaths, their bodies had been "staged", and a "souvenir" was taken from at least one of the victims.
Nic said the fact that police remained "tight-lipped" about the details of the investigations pushed the public to "fill in the blanks with unsustained rumours".
He notes that despite billboards with the suspect's photo going up across 46 states, law enforcement still took more than five years to catch him.
"When a child is killed it enrages the public – naturally so – but then we had two child victims in broad daylight," he said.
“It was this rare weird case where the victim had filmed the perpetrator and we had this information, the investigators had this information, they were sending it out to the public and still they couldn't find the guy.
“Who would have thought that we’d have his picture, a video of him and an audio recording of his voice and yet it would take five and a half years to work out who it was.”
An affidavit unsealed by a judge revealed that an unspent .40 bullet found between the bodies of the two girls appeared to have been cycled through a pistol owned by Allen.
The documents also revealed that Allen admitted to being on the bridge at the same time the girls were killed before he was arrested in late October 2022.
According to court documents released in June, the two girls' wounds were caused by a sharp object.
The documents also included a filing by prosecutors that said Allen confessed multiple times to the killings in a phone call to his wife, which was later transcribed by authorities.
Allen is the only suspect to be officially named by cops.
Last month, Allen's attorneys argued in court documents that the girls were killed by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group known as the Odinists as part of a ritual sacrifice.
The prosecutor overseeing the case dismissed the theory as a fanciful defence made for social media.
Earlier this week, Allen's defence attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi announced they withdrew from the case.
Special Judge Fran Gullsaid during a hearing: “We’ve had an unexpected turn of events."
She said a new public defence attorney would be appointed and hopes to hold a planned hearing on Tuesday, October 31 but doesn't anticipate being able to maintain the January 8 trial date.
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The trial continues.
Nic Edwards is the host of True Crime Garage and author of The Delphi Murders
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