RE-RELEASE: Delphi Murders & Miami’s Unsolved Crimes: With Joseph Scott Morgan and Enrique Santos

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates, or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true
crime all the time. It's Wednesday, November twenty sixth, officially
Thanksgiving Eve, and listen. The team is busy prepping their
own Thanksgiving meals and flying to see family and all
of the things. So we're going to be repeating one
of our most favorite episodes and we hope you enjoy

(00:41):
happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for being with us. I'm Stephanie Leidecker,
joined of course by analyst Body Movin. Courtney Armstrong will
be joining us later in the show, but right now,
we also have Joseph Scott Morgan who's jumping in our
very favorite forensics expert, also the host of Body Bags,
and he and Body are going to really unpack the
forensics and one of those cases that we've all been

(01:03):
following for so long, the Delphi murders back in the
news again. A really important documentary read just came out.
I don't know if you guys had a chance to
see it, and it really does shed light on this
recent guilt conviction in the case. So the Delphi murders
is something that body has been living and breathing so
closely for so many years. Baddie, do you want to

(01:24):
catch us up a little bit on just the the
broad strokes of this hideous case.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
You know, there's a lot of broad strokes. So this
is going to take a little bit of setting up.
This happened in Delphi, Indiana. This was in February of
twenty seventeen, so you have to put yourself back eight
years ago. I'm on Facebook, and you know, I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling,
looking at the cute pictures of the cats and stuff.
And there's an advertisement for a Facebook group and it's

(01:49):
called catch the Snapchat Killer. And now you know, immediate, okay,
I'm in let's go look at this. This is right
up my alley new exactly right. It was I think
February seventhenth I think it was twenty seventeen that I
saw this group. I joined this group and there was
a photo and audio and the photo was like this

(02:09):
really blurry guy all right, And all we knew is
that there were two dead little girls thirteen and fourteen,
Abigail Williams and Liberty German out of Delphi, Indiana, and
this photo of this guy and we heard these words
guys down the hill or actually I think at first

(02:29):
it was just down the hill and that's all. We
had this really blurry photo. But I was all in, right,
this is exactly what I'm in for. So a little
bit of background. This was February twenty seventeen. It was
unseasonably warm in Delphi. And Delphi is a really small town, right,
like three thousand people. Three thousand people out there. It's
very small. Everybody knows everybody, and it's unseasonably warm. The

(02:51):
girls have the day off from school because they're like
catching up on a snow day, and they decide to
go to the park and take photos, you know, along
the trail, you know, get some cute pictures for their
Snapchat and Instagram stories and whatnot. So they go to
the trails and you know, they had their sister drop
them off, Liberty's libby. Her dad was going to pick
them up at three thirty. Everything was arranged. And by

(03:14):
the way, this was very normal. This was nothing outside
of the normal other than this random day off from school, right,
completely normal. So Kelsey, who is Libby's sister, drops them
off at the Monan High Bridge trail the trailhead at
about one thirty five pm. You know, it's a partially
wooded it's got an old elevated like wooden train bridge,

(03:34):
and it's kind of spooky, but it's kind of like
a place where people go and take photos and look
at fish and you know, it's a really beautiful place.
So they get dropped off about one thirty. At approximately
two oh seven, so about a half an hour later,
Libby posts a snapchat photo of Abby walking across the
bridge and an empty photo of the bridge, and so

(03:55):
those get posted to her snapchat around two oh seven. Well,
shortly after that's now chat post, Libby's phone captured something else,
something that you know, really knew what he was expecting,
and it was video and audio of a man approaching
the girls on this bridge. And this is where you know,
things take a really menacing turn. And again we get

(04:17):
this audio guys down the hill. Now we're at the time,
we don't believe that he's directing the girls down the
hill where they had met their unfortunate demise and to
that end, he.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Becomes kind of known as bridge guy. Right, This is
like kind of makes worldwide news at that point.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Very blurry.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
He seems a little on the older side. I mean
again blurry, lurking. It does appear that he's like lurking
over this bridge. It kind of reminded me of like
stand by Me, the movie stand By Me, where they're
running across that bridge. You know, picture that it's beautiful,
but it's populated, it's a commonplace to go. This is
not right, completely remote.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
So that's around two thirty around. Okay, so three p
fifteen comes and goes, the Libby's dad comes, can't find them.
He's making phone calls. He's calling you know them, He's
calling Abby and Libby. He's calling Kelsey, Libby's sister. He's
calling girls wears girls. While around five point thirty, the
police are finally contacted that they can't find the girls,

(05:17):
and a search ensues until around midnight. Around noon the
next day, February fourteenth, two volunteers found the girl's body
on a private property about a half a mile from
the bridge across the Deer Creek. And you know, the
case was very quickly deemed a double homicide. Early police
statements confirmed that evidence found at the scene, including the

(05:40):
audio and video on Libby's phone, suggested that the girls
had been kind of confronted and led to that location.
Investigators initially withheld a lot of details in this case,
but it did launch what would be one of the
most publicized murder investigations in smalltown US history.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
An outsider looking at at that time, this is every
human's worst nightmare. Again, these are a thirteen year old,
fourteen year old. They're best best friends. They're just going
out to spend the day outdoors, you know everything everyone's
getting encouraged to do. Get off your phones, get off
your iPads, get off you know, not playing games, get outside, right,
nothing uncommon. We saw the interview with Libby's sister who

(06:19):
dropped them off, and she just you know, gave them
their sweatshirts, made sure they had them, and off they
went to kind of play oh school. So the idea
that they're being miss or potentially I should say, the
idea that they're being led down this hill into what
you know, we we find out to be pretty harrowing circumstances.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Remember, they're on these train tracks, right, They're on these
train tracks and they're elevated. It's very high up, you know,
and they were found down this hill and across the river,
so they were literally led down a hill. And that's
the audio that we heard for the I mean really
the only audio we had for almost seven years. We
didn't get the full Bridge Guy VideA is what we're

(07:00):
gonna call it. There was a video that Libby had
taken with her phone and we didn't get the full
video until the case was totally adjudicated, which it has
been now. Pretty short video. Yeah, So the girls were
found around noon on the fourteenth, and then of course
it turns into a crime scene.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well listen just the real time of it. You know,
the girls are discovered, you know, and they've met an
untimely death. It's Valentine's Day, right, imagine that we could
all probably picture where we were on that Valentine's Day now,
and you know, their scene did say a lot, it.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Did, and it was an unusual scene. So Libby she
was completely nude, and she had obvious and you could
see her wounds, that she had blood on her hands
and blood on her neck and some blood on the
bottom of her feet, and Abby was wearing Libby's clothes,
and major her wounds weren't so obvious, and mainly I

(08:00):
think because she was clothed and they had kind of
like been covered with some sticks, you know, long branches,
possibly to obscure the view from the river, you know,
kind of camouflage them a little bit. But what's interesting
about this is that even Abby's shoes were on. She
had her shoes, but she had Libby's jeans and sweatshirt on.

(08:22):
It's very unusual. And again Libby is totally naked.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
And what that would imply, and again, Joseph welcome jump in,
is really that you know, not only did these young
women and again these are some graphic details, so you know,
listener beware, and we'll get through them as quickly as possible,
but you know they had been undressed and redressed and placed.
And that video that you speak of where some man

(08:47):
says on the hill, we all probably have heard it.
It's really haunting when you realize those are the very
very last second. So more on that later.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
With just I think that it's important to understand the
scope of this because compared to a dwelling like a
structure that you work, a crime scene in you're very contained, right,
you're bordered by walls. I know that sounds very obvious,
but this is a completely different kind of animal. One
of the investigators described the taped off area as being

(09:17):
the size of a football field. Just let that sink
in a little bit, because this is an old adage
in forensic so that you can never expand the tape,
you can only contract the tape. So some of that
can be explained by the idea that wide net catches
more fish, and so you set up the perimeter in

(09:37):
a very broad manner. But to me, it's also saying
they don't really know where things are. They know that concentrically.
They've got these two beautiful young girls that have to
say that they've been brutalized is an understatement. And the
thing about it is this is one of those places

(09:57):
you don't wind up by accident. He did an excellent
job of describing this train trestle, because this thing is harrowing.
But here's the other piece of this. You were talking
about the height. This is not like you're going to
a national monument and you've got steps you're going to descend.
We're talking about a slick hill that is literally twenty

(10:19):
feet in height. If you don't know what twenty feet means,
that means two stories. And there is a subject, a
grown man that is apparently coaxing them down. And I
got to tell you all along, I've always felt as
though that the image of that blurry image of him
coming across a bridge, he has his hand in his pocket,

(10:41):
and there's been some talks of firearms that sort of thing.
Just think if you were these two and these are
not older teens. These are young teen girls that are
just kind of finding their way and they're just hanging
out and some old, creepy man comes along and it's
telling them to go down the hill. And this is
a word I love to use in this case, and

(11:01):
I've used it many times, is the word menacing. And
there's actually laws out there in certain jurisdictions about menacing.
You can menace people, And menacing gives you that idea
that it's just this overt threat and he could just
merely out of his pocket, pull the weapon and show
it to them. I'd be terrified how much more these

(11:24):
young women, And.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
In the full video that has since been released, the
girls are very compliant, wouldn't you very own.

Speaker 5 (11:31):
God.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Yeah, you're right on the money. They are compliant that
in no way is I'm not imputing in a way.
I got to tell you this about Delphi. In rural areas,
which I have primarily lived most of my life, one
of the ways you measure a town in rural areas
is how closest walmart as rural as This place is

(11:52):
so rural that the occupants of Delphi, it's you had
to travel almost twenty six miles just to get to
the closest wall. They are walmarts everywhere. That's why I
say that's a big clue to me. That's a huge
clue as an investigator, because your field is very narrow
at this point.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
And also, Joseph, to add to that, this bridge you're
talking about, that the girls are being led down a
hill from that would kind of make them trapped. Right,
So if you're a perpetrator who maybe wants to do
something scary, you know, here are these two young girls
crossing this little bridge. There's nowhere to run.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
You bring up such a good point, Stephanie, because at
the one end of the bridge where you enter is
where the trailhead is, and then at the other end
of the bridge. You're literally trapped. It's a home like.
You can't just walk through there. It's private property. The
only way to go down, to get off the bridge
is to either go down or to go back across it.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
I got to tell you, if you're thinking about this
from the perspective of like the military, if you were
going to set up an ambush, this is what's referred
to as a choke point, like you have no option
to go left or right. Everything narrows down. You're familiar
with the terrain, This terrain is some of the most
daunting terrain you can even begin to imagine. What's your

(13:11):
option here? You're going to do what he says to do?
Are you going to throw yourself off the bridge? You
know that you can try to run past him, but
if he presents a weapon or he's menacing, yeah, are
you going to do that? Even I mean as a child,
are you going to do that? I gotta tell you,
your default position is going to be to obey. And
that's what they did.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know in the video and the photo that we
did receive over the course of the last seven or
eight years, it was long opine that he had a
gun in his pocket. Again, this video is very blurry,
you can't really see anything, but a lot of people
said that they could make an outline in the jacket
pocket of the guy, the bridge guy. So what's interesting

(13:53):
is that they did find that in between the two
girls where they ended up resting between the girls' bodies
near their feet, there was an unspent forty caliber bullet
and it forensically matched to a sig sour Pee two
twenty six, which is now owned by the suspect, which

(14:14):
is very interesting. So this I don't know how to
go to this or For six years, there was no
arrestumate in this case. Then one day, all of a sudden,
at the near Halloween, we get, oh my gosh, there's
been an arrest in Delphi and it's this guy nobody
has ever heard of. And his name was Richard Allen.

(14:34):
And he wasn't on any of this sluice that we're
sussing everybody out. It wasn't on anybody's radar. He works
at the local CBS. He's a kind of an unassuming guy,
very surprised that this has happened. And what they did
was Richard Allen self reported that he was on the
trails that day because again they had this video right like,

(14:57):
we're looking for this guy.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
So he self reported and everybody was giving tips like, oh,
I was there, I saw this, it was the terrain,
this was the weather.

Speaker 5 (15:06):
All.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
That's a good citizen who actually calls into a tip line.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
So he does. My wife. He told his wife, hey, I
was at the trailhead today, like and those girls have
gone missing. And she's like, you've got a call. So
he calls and he meets with a conservation officer and
you know, the conservation officer looks at his phone, takes
a statement. He says, I was there during this time.
And then six years go by and he's arrested. Six years,

(15:31):
six years old. I thought we're going to continue this conversation.
So the Delphi murders were unpacking the forensics with Joseph
Scott Morgan and you know, again, this is Boddy's case.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
That's so close to her heart. So stay with us,
We'll be right back. Welcome back to true crime tonight
an iHeartRadio. We're talking true crime all the time. I'm
here with crime analyst Body Movin and our very owned

(16:05):
forensics expert, Joseph Scott Morgan and host of the podcast
Body Bags and listen, please trigger alert. We're talking about
a really sensitive topic, the Delphi murders, and listen. There
was an arrest by Richard Allen. That's the part in
the case we just are at. Now, body, do you
want to pick it up there?

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, So everybody's wondering, what do they have against Richard Allen?
What is the case against Richard Allen? And we get
like a really really short PCA from the Delphi Police Department.

Speaker 6 (16:34):
What's a PCA stand for probable cost evidated And it's
basically what the police are telling the judge and you
know this in DA. Basically, this is the evidence we
have against the suspect, Can we go ahead and arrest them?

Speaker 3 (16:46):
And it's just the evidence, not all the evidence. Obviously
they're not going to put everything in there. It's just
enough to get somebody arrested. Okay, It's important because again,
without it, you are not entering anybody's living space or
frankly looking for more evidence. So in this PCA, we
learned that there was a forty caliber bullet at the

(17:08):
scene of the crime. And we didn't know this before.
We didn't know you know, the girls were not shot.
The girls were killed with a blade of some kind.
That's all we know, and we don't even really know that,
by the way, We don't officially know that, but we
do know that. The only reason we know that is
because the funeral home told the families they would have
to wear scarves. So it's the only reason we knew

(17:31):
that they even had a blade. After six years, we
didn't really know the cause of death. There was a
massive gag order in this case.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Our hearts are so with the families too, on all
fronts because it's a sadistic case.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
So they found this bullet. Then we learned in the
PCA they found this bullet, well, they found the card. Basically,
a volunteer with the police department was going through like
all the Delphi tips and she ran across one that
had Richard Allen's name on it and saw, oh, they
need to follow up with this guy. And so they

(18:03):
followed up with him, and they got a search warrant
to his house and they found that he had a
forty caliber gun and they linked the two and.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
There was also a footprint, right, so didn't they have
a footprint and also the same shoe size or grid.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, he admitted to being there. He said he was there.
They had a footprint bridge. I actually don't know about
this footprint, to be fair the way.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Point though, even if they did, whether they did or
didn't have this footprint, it is no big deal because
he was there by his own admission.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, he said he was there. So they found a
lot of DNA too, By the way, they found a
lot of DNA and the girls, but none of it
matched anybody. They matched each other because again Libby, you know,
was nude and Abby was wearing g Libby's clothes, so
of course they're going to have DNA. You know, Abby's
going to have Libby DNA on her. And they found
unknown male DNA. None of it matches Richard Allen, So, Joseph,

(19:00):
if you make of that. Obviously, the terrain was very specific.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
It was February, so you know, authorities have said since
then that that didn't help in terms of evidence and
DNA findings, like none of it matched the accused now
convicted killer. Is that common?

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, I mean to be able to find unknown or
you know, unmatched DNA of any kind. The thing that
makes this kind of peculiar, though, is the fact that
it's not like you're in a dwelling. You know, if
you're in a dwelling where you've got multiple people living
in a dwelling, you would expect DNA deposition from a
variety of sources. Okay, but if you're out in a

(19:40):
wooded area, depending upon where they're collecting it from. Now,
if it's coming off of the bodies, which I would
imagine it was probably off clothing, that can point you
in a very specific direction. I really wonder how rigorous
they were about the genetic testing. I'm a big fan
now of forensic genetic genius. I wonder if that's something

(20:01):
that they could revisit at this point, because back then,
even though it was a concept, it was not in
practice like it is now. I mean, we're hearing cases
every single day now. I'd like to see if there
were because there are people out there that have suggested
there may have been other people, And just for peace
of mind, if I could back up just a little
bit and say something about the unspent cartridge that was

(20:24):
out there.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, because I definitely want to get into the unspent cartridge.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
It's very interesting, it is, and it's a specific round.
It was Smith and Wesson forty col. Forty col is
not real common. It's common, but it's not like nine millimeter.
The line linees share people that carry concealed. Okay, I
know that there will be debates over me saying this,
but Line's share of people that carry concealed are going
to carry nine millimeters. It's one of the most prevalent. Yeah,

(20:51):
there you go. It's one of the most prevalent hand
handgun calibers out there. But I have kept and you
can't see this, my colleagues here can but I've kept
this on my desk all of these years, covering this case.
And this is a forty caliber Smith and Wesson.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Maybe an inch big, right, So what you're holding up
is a bullet. It's, you know, just a standard bullet,
and it's probably the size of the tip of your thumb.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Yeah, yeah, it is, and it's but it's actually more
robust than say a non milimeter okay, a bit larger.
The rub with this is that they used a unique
it's not unique, but it's not as satisfying for people
as say, a true ballistic test. When you run it's sure, yeah,
when you run around down a barrel, a barrel with

(21:38):
the lands and grooves in the barrel has a very
specific ballistic fingerprint.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Right, because again it's important to remember, this bullet was
not fired. This is a fun spent bullet. It's not
the jacket, it's the bullet itself.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
Yes, So you've got the anatomy of this. The top
part is actually the projectile that's seeded in here. The
bottom part is the casing and the entirety makes the
bullet okay, And then down here you've got propellant and
then you have the primer cap down to the bottom
that has primary element and that's a bit different chemically. Anyway,

(22:17):
when they did the examination, when they collected Richard Allen's
forty cow, they take it to the State Crime Lab,
maybe even that f BI, I'm unclear, but the ballistic
section Indiana State Crime Lab would be perfectly suited to
do this. They would take the same round, not the
one that they're going to admit into evidence, but they're

(22:39):
going to take the same round, probably multiple times, place
it in to the barrel, into the tube, and they're
going to rack it multiple times with each individual, like
they may run ten through there to see if they
can replicate what are referred to as extractor and ejector
marks on here, and they run up the side and

(23:00):
on the base of the round. So when the mechanism
grabs it. This is soft metal. This is like brass,
So if you've ever had brass around your house, you
know that it's not like steel. So it leaves little marks,
and those marks can be tied back to a specific weapon,
but they are not as specific as the projectile being
fired and going down the barrel as it's spinning, that

(23:22):
leaves a very specific ballistic fingerprint. So this is where
you know a lot of people took exception to this
bit of evidence that it's collected seen. I think it's
a key piece because it goes back to what I'd
mentioned earlier about menacing. How many movies have we seen
where somebody's out on the street and all they do
is present a weapon, and they just demonstrated it happens

(23:44):
in real life. Yeah, it happens in real life too.
People are menaced with weapons. Hey, I'm backing off. How
much more so? You get two young girls down and
it's down in a hole essentially, let's face it. You
get them down there and all of a sudden and
you rack that round and you're in such a height
and this is on me. I'll say this right here

(24:06):
and right now, you're in such a heightened state of
sexual desire, in this perverted manner toward these little girls
that guess what you forget? You stick the weapon back
in your pocket, but you leave that's racked round on
the ground and stuff to your point, making it difficult.
Remember we're still in February, and there's that drop of

(24:29):
leaves that have taken place just a few months back.
The ground here is.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Just covered and now damp and yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
Damp and mossy, I say, mossy, kind of mulchy feeling.
It's got that smell that you smell out in the woods.
I'm not going to say it's dumb luck. I think
that to my way of thinking, I think they probably
ran over this entire area with a metal detector because
these rounds, they're so heavy and so dense intact, they
will literally move, gravity will pull them. If it's laying

(24:58):
on a leaf, it'll roll down and go beneath other leaves.
So you have to run a metal detector to see
the things that can't be seen with the unaided eye.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
So can I just ask one thing, just to reset.
Bodies are discovered, I mean tragically. Their clothes have obviously
been taken off and rearranged. One found completely nude. A
bullet which Joseph Scott Morgan you're describing, this bullet is
found between them. They're in this rough terrain at the
bottom of this hill while they were trying to cross

(25:29):
a bridge above head. And also, you know again it's
a day later. We know that search was very large,
per you, Joseph, the size of a football field. Now
add twenty four hours, and we know that there's this
video and audio about forty three seconds worth. It seems
like there should be easy to find who this guy is,

(25:50):
right well, and now they're making this arrest. The guy
is a pharmacist, he's working at the pharmacy. He's a
family man, has kids as a wife. How could that
be by the way he calls it.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
And he never left Melphi.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
He never leaves Nilphi, which was a little bit of
a tell. They always had said psychiatrists or a psychoanalyst
had said that perhaps they they left and kind of
rolled into the real world and just sort of acclimated
back into the community. That would track so Joseph back
to you and I'm sorry to cut you off there.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Back to the forensics, No, I was look at I've
got to confess body and I had a conversation about this,
and I don't know she concurs with it, but this
is kind of my thought. Going back to Alan working
at CVS, there was a story that had floated about
when funerals occurred, there's only one place in town where

(26:40):
you get pictures developed. I think that's CVS. You know,
still getting thirty five's printed and doing. You know, everybody
sees these when you go into the drugs.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
You know it's a funeral. They're going to get pictures
blown up.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
And then he funeral, he allegedly makes the offer to
do everything for free, and this is offered to the family.
I might be misspeaking here. I'm not sure. It may
have been Kelsey directly. And you know the other thing
that I talked about.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
The accused Richard Allen, who's working at the CVS.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, he's a nighttime manager essentially.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Right, so he's volunteering services to the families for the girls' funerals, photographs,
et cetera. This is like the worst wasn't there that
movie with Robin Williams about the guy used to make
the photographs. Okay, so that's what was that. It was
a scary movie, I guess, very similar.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Well, you know, the thing about it is with the photographs,
you have an insight into people's lives. If you're getting
hard copies when these things are developed, if they're developing
in house, you know they do. They have the machinery
to do that. You sit there and you can just
flip through it. And who's going to pay Who pays
attention to what the guy in the photo booth does? Anyway?
And this is the other thing that Body and I
mentioned with one another. If you're looking for intimate details

(27:58):
about people, how much more intimate is it that there
are not too many people in my little town where
I live that know more about me than the Walgreens pharmacist,
because they know everything. They know what kind of medications
you're on, they know what your phone number is, they
know where you live. I mean, how many robocalls do
we get say your prescription is ready? You know, And
just that's the kind of information that this quiet, unassuming person,

(28:24):
you know, he kind of mels into the background, and
these are and the thing about is that's so disturbing
to me about the scene itself, is that these are
very dark fantasies that he's playing through. I had a
serial killer years ago that used to redress bodies, turn
underwear inside out, to put them back on the victims,

(28:47):
the idea that you can treat people like their dolls,
and that's it's horrible that he did this to this
precious girl, and that's what he was doing. He completely
dehumanized them, and it's just absolutely heartbreaking.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's a hard case. And one thing I'm never going
to forget is during the trial, one of the person
taking the photography of the scene said that Libby, poor Libby,
who by the way, is nude. You know, she's fourteen
years old at a time when all girls are so
just self conscious. You know, there's streaks down her eye

(29:24):
and it's like dirt, but there's a clear path of
clear and he said that those were Libby's tears. It
cleared a path. And I you know, I'm never going
to forget that, never forget.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
It's an indication of pain response and when you see that,
you know that and I've always held this that this
was a torturous death, that this was not a quick death,
and even the forensic pathologists that did did these autopsies
states that on the stand that these were not a
medium deaths, that they would have lingered for a period

(29:57):
of time. There was an awareness of what was happening
to them, staring up either at him or to that
sky and the trees above them, and this is the
last thing they're going to see.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
And we know that true be true based on the
blood pattern. You know, in the woods there's pools of
blood and by the way, it's all Libby's blood. There's
pools of blood, and we know that she walked through
her own blood because her blood is on the bottom
of her feet. So she gets her throat slashed, and
your first thing is going to be to grab it, right,

(30:27):
So that's what she does, and that's why her hands
are bloody. And then she's stumbling. She grabs a tree,
and that's where the f tree comes. We're going to
talk about that in a second. She grabs a tree,
she's stumbling and walking through her own blood where she
and then she finally comes to rest and she sits
down and she's pooling more. And then finally lays to rest,
So we know it took a minute. Abby. We're not

(30:48):
one hundred percent sure on I don't think, but Libby
definitely definitely suffered. It's hard to talk about it's a
little kid.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
These are two beautiful little kids, two beautiful girls. And again,
you know what comes next is all so pretty compelling
because there have been Richard Allen's family says he's innocent,
bottom line, right, So we want to kind of unpack that.
Despite the fact that he is arrested and goes to
trial and is found guilty, some have suspected that there

(31:16):
was maybe a cult involved that was operating in the area.
So stick with us. This is true crime tonight. We'll
be right back with more. Welcome back to true crime
tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true crime all the time,

(31:39):
and we're talking about the Delphi murders and the tragedy
in Delphi, Indiana. And Joseph and Body have been following
this case so closely from day one. It's sensitive, Body continues,
sorry to have to cut you off earlier.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Now it's fine. So in October twenty twenty two, Richard
Allen was arrested and charged with the murder of Abby
Williams and Libby Jermy after the case had gone unsolved
four years five six years after their death, a suspect
was finally apprehended in charge for the murder of thirteen
and fourteen year old. Upon his arrest, the forty eight
year old pharmacy technician husband and father pled not guilty,

(32:16):
but nearly two years later, Richard Allen was sentenced to
one hundred and thirty years of prison as he was
found guilty of these murders. A tip that I spoke
about earlier that Alan had submitted himself back in twenty
seventeen admitting he had been on the trail that day
of the murders, was rediscovered in twenty twenty two by
a volunteer who was kind of like organizing case files.

(32:37):
And during that twenty twenty two search of Richard Allen's home,
police located that sig Sawyer P two twenty six pistol,
which forensic analysis tied to the unspent forty caliber rounds
left at the scene. Again, this is not a fired bullet,
but they matched that gun to that bullet austriations from
racking it, which is what they are that Richard Allen

(33:01):
had done in a menacing way to kind of threaten
the girls and to get them to be compliant. So
here's the thing. Richard Allen was not housed in county
jail while he waited trial. Richard Allen was sent to
the Westville Correctional Facility, which is a prison. So he's
technically an innocent man, but he's being held in a prison.

(33:22):
And why how how is that possible? And wasn't he
in solitary confinement? Yeah? It was a safekeeping order they
I believe they said it was due to protect him.
Because again, this is like a child killer, you guys, right, Like,
they've got to put him in like protective custody. And
they didn't have the facilities in Delphi, Indiana to take
care of this. So he was sent to the Westville

(33:43):
Correctional Facility and he was put in solitary confinement. And
while he was in solitary confinement, he started acting kind
of crazy. All right, I don't know how to say it.
He started acting kind of like he was losing his marbles.
On top of that, he started confessing to the crimes
and he would say things like I did it, I

(34:04):
killed Abby and Libby. He would confess to his psychologist,
who I've got a lot to say about. I've got
a lot of really negative things to say about her.
He confessed to his wife, and he confessed to his mother.
Now his psychologist, guys, doctor Walla is a true crime
fan and she's in all the Delphi discussion groups. By
the way, is that lean about this case? Wow?

Speaker 2 (34:27):
So again the person who's the analyst who's analyzing his
mental health and ability to be at trial. By the way,
I have no skin in this game. I'm just surprised
that anybody can be put into solitary confinement while waiting
for trial, because it's intended to make you crazy.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
It's intended to do that, right. So now you've got
people in myself included, who, by the way, want nothing
but for the person who did this to be put
in jail for the rest of their life. But now
you've got people questioning things because of all this crap.
You know, I'm a believer in law enforcement. I believe
in the system. I don't like having questions about somebody's

(35:05):
guilt or innocence, you know what I mean. I don't
like it at all. I like to be convinced and
the situation surrounding Richard Allen's incarceration and what they basically
did to him while he was incarcerated in prison makes
me kind of question if those confessions are actually valid
or if they are the ramblings of a crazy person.
Because he was on Haldall and he was on all

(35:26):
these they put them on all kinds of crap. Then
you got doctor Walla, who's you know, his psychologist, his confidant,
going into Gary Hughes, investigates Frickin' channel talking about the
Delphi case all night. I just don't like it. I
don't like it at all. It doesn't sit right with me.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
And by the way, you're not alone on that. There's
been a ton of chatter on all sides of this case.
On the one hand, of course, everyone wants justice for
these two beautiful girls and their families have been through
excruciating pain, and on the other that's pretty uncustomary. So, yes,
he has the same gun apparently in his home that
very bullet was found in between the bodies. Yes, there's

(36:04):
a shoe print that apparently, you know, fits his size
and the type of shoe grid he had. And by
his own admission, because he called in to tip off
the police just to say, hey, yeah, I was in
the area at the time. He's kind of basically calling
in a tip as a good samaritan. Now years later,
fast forward, that ends up being something being held against him,

(36:26):
and then he confesses in various ways while in protective custody. Also,
he was in solitary confinement.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Right, and then don't forget over the course of the
six years that you know, this investigation was, you know,
happening before an arrest was made. We received four different
sketches and they all look different. None of them look
like Richard Allen, not a single one. They all look different.
One's an old man, one's a skinny young man, one's

(36:56):
just a young man. I mean, they are wildly different.
But every time I bring up, I don't know if
Richard Allen did this or not. Here's what I'm told.
Richard Allen admitted to being on the trail that day.
Richard Allen is Bridge guy, Bridge Guy killed the girls.
That's what I get told, Like almost like sit down
and shut up, body.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Interesting because they don't nobody really wants to kind of
revisit this. But his family is standing by his side
and claiming that there was other circumstances in and around
the area, potentially a cult that was operating nearby. We
don't have to super get into this, but there was
this allegation that there's a cult, an odinous cult, and

(37:36):
that means that maybe there was some sacrificial stuff going on.
Perhaps the branches and some of the leaves and things
that were discarded on their bodies when they were found,
maybe that was linked. Maybe some of these pools of
blood that body you described so scarily or in such

(37:56):
scary detail from Libby's body, like them on the tree,
et cetera.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
They thought it was like a run. One of the
Todd Klick, he's a he's an investigator with the Indiana
State Police. He kind of thought, maybe this kind of
looks like the everything's kind of staged, is what he thought.
And they called in a professor from Purdue that like
has knowledge about these cults. And in the area of Delphi,

(38:24):
they have this Vinlanders cult, which is this motorcycle gang
that is an odinist. Now again, normal people practicing Norse
paganism are not bad people, but it's been hijacked by
these white supremacists, This this odinist cult, these Norse symbols,
you know, symbols and whatnot, and Todd Klick kind of

(38:46):
thought that, you know, maybe these Vinlanders might be involved. Well,
turns out one of the Vinlanders son is dating Abby.
I mean, that is a pretty harrowing detail. It's kind
of compelling till what it says. What does that mean
to you?

Speaker 1 (39:01):
So?

Speaker 7 (39:01):
What is that?

Speaker 2 (39:02):
What do you make of that? Do you think there's
any validity to that, Joseph, do you think that has merit?

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Well, this is the thing, because it's not just the
one percenters. I'm assuming that that's what they are that
are involved in this. Their supposition has been that there's
an entire collection of these individuals that work at this prison.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
So well they admitted. By the way, since you bring
that up, Richard Allen said that he was being threatened
by prison guards wearing odin patches. Okay, because okay, and
everyone's like, yeah, okay, whatever, Nope, next document release, we
have guess what we have the warden admitting, yeah, his
guards are wearing odin patches. So Richard Allen is saying,

(39:43):
I confess because I'm under thread at the prison. I'm
going crazy. Now you've got these odin patched prison guards.
You know, signing affidavit said, yeah, they wear patches in prison.
It was kind yeah, that would.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
Be allowed relative to unofficial uniform because in those uniformed
environments like that, they're very specific how you're supposed to
address and listen. The thing about prison is that everything
in prison, no matter how passive it is, means something.
And you know all you have to look at tats,
You look at the way sign languages done, people behave.

(40:21):
There's certain ways ways you walk, there's certain ways you talk,
who you talk to, what you do. That's, you know,
to me, that was interesting. Here's another thing. I always
wondered about the forensics of those branches, trying to understand
if they had been tool marked or not.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Joseph, they them, you know, they left them there for
three weeks.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
What does that mean exactly if they left them there, well,
they didn't.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Collect them and bring them in. And these are like,
these branches are overlaying the bodies in a way. I
think you guys use stuff. I think you mentioned camouflage
a little while ago, so it couldn't be seen from above. Okay,
I'll give you marks for that, but I've seen these illustrations.
There's one kind of famously infamously that's out there where

(41:05):
it's a diagram that has been drawn and these branches
are laying over and people are saying, it's almost like
watching somebody do a magic trick with cards. Here, look
at this, you know, they're saying, you can see this letter,
you can see this formation, and yeah, in the way
the branches are laid there. Yeah, and so why is

(41:25):
there not more evidence of a bunch of people? So
if this is a okay, let's just go with it.
Let's say it's a sacrifice. Let's just say that, why
is no more ground disturbed around this area where you've
got people marching in to witness this? And and why are
they going to do it in broad daylight when you
know that there's uh, it just seems it seems as though.

(41:46):
And listen the post mortem interval piece to this, the
status of their bodies when they were examined, it kind
of marries up with the time that approximates when they disappeared.
So that's that's a big, big piece to this. One
other thing too, that not much hay has been made
over is the distance between walking distance and direct walking

(42:08):
distance between Richard Allen's house and the location you can
literally walk across. I think it's like two pastures. Nobody's
going to see you. You can approach off of Logan's
property and descend down into this area and never be seen.
You just kind of poof. There's no need to park
a car, there's no and so you can actually walk

(42:28):
back and forth. So for me, that's always kind of
stacked up in my mind relative to pointing back to him.
And the thing about it is, he never left. As
you guys mentioned, he has intimate knowledge of this area
and the fact that you've got an individual, in my
opinion at least, that's acting out a devious sexual play

(42:51):
in his mind with these young girls that he can
influence and do these things with. You know, all signs
point to him. From my perspective, I think that to
be more satisfied, I'd like to have more connectivity from
a DNA perspective, footprint evidence, all those sorts of things.
But you know, it's a done deal now. Now, will
they uncover some sinister group that's actually behind the scene.

(43:15):
I don't know, Maybe they will. I hope they continue
to investigate.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
I do too, And you know, with appeals coming, maybe
they'll have some new evidence to share with us. I
hope they do. One thing about this trial that was
really hard, you guys, is that everything there was a
massive gag order in this like one of the strongest.
I've even the family right in your gag in this case,
which is really unusual. And so when it went to trial,
the only way you could really know what was going

(43:40):
on is it that you were inside the courtroom, because
no media was like, there's no there's no photography, there
was nothing allowed, no audio, nothing. So after each day
everybody would sit around and listen to people who were
inside the courtroom that day, and depending on who you

(44:00):
listen to, is what you heard. So if you're listening
to a pro defense side of the aisle, you're going
to get all the bad things the state did, and
if you're listening to a pro state here about what
a bad and evil person Richard Allen is. It was
very very interesting because like mass media, like normal media
like that live in whatnot in Indiana were provided really

(44:24):
even the family. Yeah, I mean, it's it's been very difficult,
and so maybe because of that, I've just I'm left
very unsatisfied with this case, like, I just have it
in my head that there's something that's going to convince me.
And listen, it's not important to convince me. I just
want to be convinced. I'm just nosy and I need
to know what happened.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
I think this case, I got to tell you, I
think it's precedent setting in a sense that this is
a perfect example. While we do need cameras in the
courtroom and all of this conspiratorial stuff, all that stuff
just kind of vanishes in the air. And look, you
don't have to show the pictures. We've seen this played
out over and over again. You don't have to show
gory pictures. You can block that out, doesn't have to

(45:03):
be seen. But just to catch what's going on in
there and to understand the tenor of the conversation is
very important here and so much.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
So in this case.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Yeah, and this is a shiny example of what happens
in the dark, right, because all this stuff has happened
in the dark, and we have to rely on other
people's stories to tell the American public, and I just
don't like it.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
And by the way, it does speak a lot also
to again, Liby and Abigail, their families, our hearts are
with them, but also how smart she was to be
able to take her phone and to snapchat something live
at two o seven pm. That audio video whatever forty
three seconds that she was able to record was one

(45:47):
of the most critical pieces of information. Right, So I
would have to imagine this case is going to continue,
and to your point, Body, there's likely appeal after appeal
after appeal to come. Right now, he's looking at one
hundred and thirty years sixty five per victim claims his
innocence and his wife stands by him.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Yeah, and she's insistent that he's innocent, and you know
she's standing by him. And whether you know right or wrong,
you have to admire that she's not given up on
her husband. And she absolutely does not listen. Either she
does not believe it or she is in bad denial.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Joseph any predictions, I know we have to wrap it up, but.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
No, it's yeah, it's going to go up on appeal,
and I think I'm kind of reinvigorated by the proposition
that new stuff could be introduced, because in order to
form an appeal you have to bring forth new substance information. Yeah,
what that information will be will see what else have
they uncovered. Do they have a team that has the
ability to uncover stuff, because I can tell you there's

(46:47):
a lot of attorneys out there that would love to
make their bones on a case like this. So we'll
see what happens during the course of the appeal.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Wow, big show listen. Thank you for sticking with us.
Wishing you a fantastic rest of your holiday weekend. Please
remain safe out there. This is True Crime Tonight. We've
been talking true crime all the time and we will
be back soon.

Speaker 7 (47:20):
This is True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're retalk true
crime all the time. I'm Courtney Armstrong. I'm here with
Crime Analyst. Body move in. Do not forget. If you've
missed any part of the show, you can always catch
the podcast. Joining us now is the award winning host
of Cold Case Files Miami, Enrique Santos. He is a
trusted voice in the radio world. He is a reserve

(47:43):
officer with Miami's police Department and on his podcast, he
teams up with Cold Case Homicide Unit. He does that
to re examine unsolved murders and give families a renewed voice.

Speaker 5 (47:55):
Enrique, welcome, Thank you so much Courtney. Congratulations on the
success of this podcast as well.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Well, thank you. We're welcome hopefully we're so big as
you one day exactly. And it's trusted, let's add you know,
and it's trusted. You're very trusted. I went and read
all about you and you are like incredibly trusted in
your community and you you take that very seriously, and
I just I really wanted to commend you on that
real quick.

Speaker 5 (48:18):
Thank you. It's a blessing to be able to represent
my community and Latinos that live simultaneously and two two
worlds at the same time, English and Spanish and living
you know, bi cultural and doing wearing so many different
hats at iHeart and broadcasting and in law enforcement. It's
a I ticket with a great deal of responsibility.

Speaker 7 (48:40):
Well and you wheeled it well, Erique. So off of that,
So you have worked in law enforcement, can you explain
a little bit, because I got to hear your background
on your fantastic podcast, talk to us about working in
law enforcement and also how that shaped the way you
approach these cold cases in your podcast.

Speaker 5 (49:01):
Sure, so let's start with cold case files Miami. Right,
it's more than just a I would say more than
a just a true crime podcast. It's a it's a
personal mission for me. As a reserve police officer in
the city of Miami, I've seen firsthand the pain that
lingers when when justice is delayed or never comes for
some people unfortunately. You know, I've talked to frustrated detectives

(49:21):
who carry these cases with them for decades, and families
who are still searching for answers. Many of these, you know, parents,
especially the mothers. Got to applaud them. It's like, Wow,
I've learned so much doing this podcast. They've turned their
grief into into purpose, and some of them have created foundations,
community efforts to support other victims and families, and they

(49:42):
keep their loved ones memories alive. And that's probably That's
a lot about what the spirit of this podcast came
about and why I decided to do it. That's exactly
why we created Cold Case Files Miami in partnership with
a School of Humans, and of course iheartsmicha will do
to podcast network. So we go beyond the head lines.
We re examine evidence with forensic experts. We dive into

(50:06):
how breakthroughs and fingerprinting in DNA and are changing the
game and evolving and how it's evolved since its inception
years so many years ago, right, and giving a voice
to those whose stories have been left left behind. So
they're not just statistics. These are these are these stories
are about people, sons, daughters whose lives were stolen tragically, senselessly.

(50:28):
Many of these cases, some people out there still may
know something that can help solve them. Right. So it's
like I feel a sense of responsibility beyond the badge,
beyond my work as a reserve officer. I'm a former
full time police officer, left the police work to do broadcasting.
I live in these two awesome worlds, so I get
how can I really do something for these victims in
these families and.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Especially a really unique position, right like you are living
in both worlds. I've never met anybody that's done that before,
and I think it's I'm going off script here. I
think that's really cool. I think that is really, really,
really cool because you're able to get big national attention
on cases while also speaking the language of law enforcement. Right,

(51:09):
that is a really unique position, and you wield it well.
I think this is your crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, I'm
Body Moven and right now, we're joined by the award
winning host of Cold Case Files Miami, Enrique Santos, and
we want to hear from you. Give us a call
at eighty eight thirty one Crime and leave us a
voicemail or hit us up on the talkbacks using the

(51:30):
iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
No, you just described very well the spirit of why
I do it and why I try to use my
platforms in a positive way. Right So, speaking to my
experience as a police officer that has definitely been critical
about who I am. I was a police explorer as
a young man, then became a police dispatcher, then into
the police academy, then into police work, and then I
bumped into broadcasting kind of by accident. So I do

(51:54):
two things that I'm absolutely absolutely passionate about and that
I love doing, and again that it's critical, and I
use my platform again to do something positive. So, you know,
going back to law enforcement, Yeah, I've been through the
crappy parts of it. I've stood over dead bodies. I've
interviewed devastated witnesses and been part of that the pursuit
to bring killers to justice. I've also had to you know,

(52:15):
knock on doors and deliver the horrible news, the worst
possible news to families that their loved ones aren't aren't
coming home. I've done that, I've been that. I've had
to do that since I was a young police officer
at the age of nineteen, fresh out of the police academy.
That kind of trauma, I would say, it doesn't fade,
you know, it gives me a very very real understanding
of the pain that these families and investigators carry. So

(52:38):
when I revisit cases like our episode one, which was
sixteen year old Brian Herrera who was killed in broad daylight,
he was shot and killed in the streets of Miami
years ago for his cell phone, or joy Sapp who
was a beloved woman who was murdered in Liberty City
here in Miami, and.

Speaker 7 (52:57):
Talk about episode one just really quick, absolutely because that
it staggered me, just the senselessness, like you said, it was,
you know, over a cell phone that he pointed out
it wasn't even connected to you couldn't even make a
phone call. It was so he could play games. And
he was an a student and go riding his bike

(53:19):
to his friend's house to do his homework over Christmas.

Speaker 5 (53:23):
So sad devastating, But.

Speaker 7 (53:26):
I also I think everything you were speaking about before,
your experience in dealing with families who have lost the
most important people in their lives, it gives you the
pathos to, you know, tell the stories in a really
compassionate way and really highlight because his mother what a
force of nature and handing out the photos. Can you

(53:49):
talk about the the importance that victims' family members can
play as cases go on.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
One hundred percent. Specifically with episode one, Brian Herrara, the
sixteen year old that was shot and killed for his
cell phone. It was horrible because like it was Christmas time, right,
and he had a younger, younger sister that still lives today,
but she was too young then to understand what was
going on with her with their brother who had just
been murdered. Christmas was approaching, so Santa is still coming.
Hearing Brian's mom tell that story, how devastated, how heartbreaking

(54:20):
that was that they were dealing with the murder of
their son at the very same time having to deal
with Christmas and trying to keep Brian's younger sister, their
young youngest daughter, shielded from all this negative negativity and
new life and the connection is very real, not just
for the family, but also you know, have a colleague
of mine, a former Miami police officer that heard the

(54:41):
episode and he called me right away when episode one
dropped about Brian her Era, and he remembered everything he
told me. And I was on the scene. I remember
seeing Brian shot. I helped coordinate with the fire rescue
to get him transport and all that kind of stuff.
That gave me the chills. It was a reminder that
these cases still live in the memories of the people
who were there, the law horseman officers, the first responders,

(55:02):
more especially the families. Right when it comes to the
parents who've lost children to violence, that I would say,
they want they want closure right and they deserve it.
I think we can all agree there. You know, imagine
losing your child in this descript and this herndous story
that we just laid out. In episode five, I talked
to a very strong woman named Tangala Sears, and she

(55:24):
was never getting clear answers after her son was murdered,
so she turned her pain into purpose. She founded an
organization here in Florida called Parents of Murdered Children. There's
another woman named Lawrence Webb in episode two. Well, Lawrence
was murdered when she was thirty two. This was in
twenty thirteen. Her case lingered in limbo despite a known suspect,

(55:49):
So they knew who the guy was, but they didn't
have enough evidence to charge them. So imagine living with
that trauma too. It's like, we got it. They're pressuring
the police departments, they're pressuring the state attorneys off. These
families are forced to live in a suspended state of grief. Yeah,
they want to know why, they want to know who,
and they want to know, you know, to know that
the system didn't forget about them, that the system didn't

(56:13):
forget about their loved one.

Speaker 7 (56:15):
Was she the mother and that was also quite another
absolute powerhouse of a human with her resolve to just
keep calling and making sure that people did not forget
and calling and calling. I think another thing that your
series does really well, that Cold Case Files Miami does

(56:38):
really well is also while telling the personal stories, you
also give listeners some knowledge of sort of legalities. I
think it was episode two where an officer is speaking about, well,
we have enough suspicion that we can arrest someone, but
then you have to go to the prosecutors and they

(56:59):
have a different stand and that's just the reality, and
you know sometimes it's I don't know, there's a lot
of obstacles to get to final justice.

Speaker 5 (57:09):
One hundred percent. Yeah, Episode two with Laurent's a Web,
the thirty two year old that was shot in twenty thirteen,
So a suspect had emerged right within days, but formal
charges didn't follow for like five years afterwards. So we
explore in this episode, you know, why justice was delayed
and if the case can still hold up in court.
And that's another big problem with with these with these cases,

(57:31):
you know, they go for a long time unsolved. These
cases collect dust on the detectives sometimes retire, they move
on to other units. The witnesses aren't so clear about
what they saw. They they don't remember their memory, you know, fades.
So those are all that factors in absolutely how much has.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
The advancements in forensics helped bring new hope to old
cases that you've experienced.

Speaker 5 (57:58):
This has got to be one of my favorite episodes,
which is episode three, because I talk with Miami Dade
County State Attorney Catherine Fernandez Rundel, So I'll give you
a little background on Kathy and why I'm so proud
of her and what is and what she's done in
Miami Dade County. So, Kathy's been the state attorney for
Miami Dade County for thirty years. She's the first Cuban

(58:20):
American and Hispanic woman to ever hold that role in
the state of Florida. So really, yeah, she's led one
of the she's led one of the largest prosecutor offices
in the country, it's Miami Dade County for over thirty years,
and has been a pioneer in criminal justice reform. Truly,
she's a powerhouse. She's created specialized courts for domestic violence,

(58:43):
for mental health, which we know finally is getting the
attention that it deserves now these days for our vets.
She's very respected and it was great to sit down
and talk with her. She told me something and I'll
never forget, you know. She said, the truth always rises,
and she meant that literally, because there's a case that
she made reference to as a mister Bates, a man
who had gone missing after a hurricane hit here in

(59:05):
South Florida. The floodwaters unearthed this briefcase and inside was
mister Bates's body. So that's wild, right, So the discovery
led to the reopening of his case and the conviction
of a former business partner for his murder. So cases

(59:27):
like that are now solvable because how far forensic science
has come. One major turning point, of course, was in
two thousand and one, the year the Human Younome Project
released its first full draft of the Human DNA Map. Right,
that changed everything. It gave scientists and law enforcement the
tool to analyze partial DNA samples with a precision that
simply didn't exist before. So since two thousand and one,

(59:50):
i'd say two thousand and one was the year DNA
moved from the lab to the streets. It turned cold
cases into solvable cases, victims into identity, and suspicion into
scientifically backed proof. And Kathy really dives into how all
this has changed. She explains, how, you know, the advancements
and fingerprint technology and DNA databases like cotis, you know,

(01:00:12):
the combined DNA index system that we're seeing justice catch
up with with time. I'd say COTIS alone has assisted
over half a million, you know, investigations, many involving decades
old evidence. And it's a reminder that science can give
families something they haven't had in a long time, which
is hope.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Right. I love that you have such a wide range
of cases that you talk about, and you look into
some that are totally cold and been cold for decades
and some that have gone to trial or like that
are completely closed, but that there's doubts about. Right, Like
the episode led by detectives Zachary Scott, what can you
tell us about that?

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Well, with Zachary Scott is very interesting because this was
a gentleman that lived in Brazil, and this guy was
a wife abuser. There's evidence of it to the point
where he shot his wife. There's thoughts that his wife,
the wife's family member put a hit out on him.
He disappeared for a while. But the tie with Brazil.

(01:01:14):
In South Florida was really fascinating. Right. There was two
women murdered here in two different jurisdictions in South Florida,
one in Broward County and that's where detective Zachary Scott works,
and another one in the City of Miami where I'm
a reserve City of Miami police officer. But there were
similarities in the case. They had found the bodies, they
had DNA, but they couldn't match it to anybody. Make

(01:01:35):
a short story long. This was fascinating this whole episode
because this detective was able to connect the dots between
his officers in Broward County, the police officers in the
city of Miami, and law enforcement in Brazil get the
Brazilian authorities to cooperate for the first time in history.
They thought this man had faked his death when they

(01:01:56):
thought that this was the man, but they needed his
DNA to confirm that the match on the two women
in Florida. They actually got the DNA from his daughter
who cooperated with the Brazilian authorities. So it was fascinating.
And he goes into this whole investigation that spanned countries
in decades before finally unveiling and being able to really

(01:02:17):
pin these two murders on this women. It's fascinating to
get this detective to open up and tell me. When
I asked him, do you think there were more women
that were murdered? I said, He says absolutely. He was
addicted to street workers. It was confirmed that these women
in Florida were sex workers. The argument that he got
into his wife where he shot her in Brazil, was

(01:02:37):
over his involvement with prostitutes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Coming up more with the award winning hosts of Cold
Case Files Miami Enrique Santos, keep it right here True
Crime Tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:03:00):
This is True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we talk
true crime all the time. I'm Courtney Armstrong here with
crime analyst Body Moven. We are back with award winning
host of Cold Case Files, Miami, Enrique Santo's.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Welcome back in Riek. Thank you so much for being
here and for all the incredible work you're doing with
Cold Case Files Miami. I mean it's hard enough to
work with agencies in other counties, yes, let alone another country.
I mean, that's pretty that's pretty great. At him that
he was able to pull that off.

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
It gets more fascinating because he was able to use
case law to prove to Brazil a case that had
happened just prior or a couple of years prior, where
they actually, for the first time ever, the court system
in Cuba convicted somebody for a crime that happened in
the United States. So that's set precedent. There was case law.

(01:03:53):
They used that as example, and they used that to
convince the Brazilian authorities to cooperate. It truly fascinating.

Speaker 7 (01:03:58):
Yeah, it really was a very very cool listen and
it almost felt like like you're eavesdropping on the two
of you sort of talking it out.

Speaker 5 (01:04:07):
It was.

Speaker 7 (01:04:07):
It was a different it was a different vibe slightly
than the other episodes in which I've really enjoyed sort
of Buddy and I were talking about earlier, just the
you're on a ride with all of these episodes.

Speaker 5 (01:04:22):
Thank you, Courtney.

Speaker 7 (01:04:23):
What is kind of a two part question, how do
you choose your cases? And also what's one case that's
really sort of really stuck with you?

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
So in the selection of these cases has been really
organic kind of how they come about. I have family members,
lifetime friends, ex coworkers, still partners on the police department
who are tied to a lot of these cases. A
lot of that, there's a lot of them. There's information
where they might have leads, so and we don't want

(01:04:58):
to ruin anything. They don't want to ruin a case
or the chances of where they're you know, they're right
on the tail of somebody, and so we don't want
to talk about it because it's almost right at the
you know, the borderline of getting of getting solved. So
that really dictated of how much information of unsolved cases
we were to put out. And then I said to
the team, and collectively we said, why don't we talk

(01:05:19):
about the success story too, not just I mean this,
this podcast series would be successful if we're able to
bring closure to some of these families. Number One, humanize
these these people and and they you know, remind people
that what the toll is of all this violence, and
it's fascinating, heartbreaking by the same time inspiring to hear

(01:05:39):
these family members destroyed, their lives totally shattered, how they've
put themselves together, and how many of them are now
helping other families move forward through the organizations, through through
other support groups, even just telling their story to me
and participating in this podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
This is true crime Tonight on iHeart, I'm Body Moven
and we are joined tonight by the award winning host
of Cold Case Files, Miami, Enrique Santos, and we want
to hear from you. Hit us up on the talkbacks
on the iHeartRadio app. You know, it's one thing, that's
one thing I really struggle with, is I get to
attach to people and their story. How do you balance

(01:06:21):
this emotional weight of all these stories that you're covering
while still doing your job as a journalist and storyteller.
How do you how do you manage that? Because I'm
personally struggling.

Speaker 5 (01:06:30):
Well, I let me tell you there's no manual, right,
uh for this. And you've got experiences because you've done
You've done great work. And congrats on your series on
on on Netflix for doing what's right. Look, how much
you stirred up a lot, but you did.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
It for the right reasons, right if you have a
good heart, I think you know, and good intentions. Right,
But don't you feel like do you do you struggle
with the emotional toll because you are taking on a
big like when somebody is full of hope. Yeah, and
you're you know, taking that on. That's a that's a
big burden for yourself.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
Sure. As cops, you know you're training the police academy
to stay detached. I would say arms distance when you're
when you're when you're involved in these cases, don't you know.
But when you're telling the story of someone like Brian Hurre,
you can't help but feel it. It's real. I mean,
you're listening to their mothers. The historian of the sister
and how they had to continue on going the life,

(01:07:31):
their life goes on, and so they have to celebrate
Christmas the same week that they're burying their son. There
there there's you know, there these there are these cases
that there you feel the true weight of it and
the real human loss. And I've learned to compartmentalize. I'd
say the best I can, but but I won't pretend
it doesn't take a toll. It absolutely takes a toll.
And that in the one episode where we dive into

(01:07:53):
there's one where we dive into the emotional cost for
first responders, episode five with tangelaus Sears, and we tell
this and the truth is, listen, law enforcement has some
of the highest suicide and alcoholism rates of any profession.
More officers, as a matter of fact, die die by
suicide than in the line of duty. You would think

(01:08:13):
it's different right now with so much police officers right now,
but yeah, more officers die in the United States by
suicide than in the line of duty. And that the
numbers prove that. And that's why I supported organizations like
Bleeding Blue. These are two Miami Dade County sheriffs and deputies.
They're brothers, friends of mine, and they formed this nonprofit.
They're doing this amazing work organizing peer support groups, counseling resources,

(01:08:38):
and conferences to help first responders. When I graduated the
police Academy when I was nineteen, there was a block
on a mental health The psyche is there if you
need to talk to them after a shooting or after
a critical incident. But the truth of it is that
not too many people follow up on that. It was
at that time kind of looked down upon, not just

(01:08:59):
for for police, but also for fire and rescue first responders.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
You know, it seems like weaker or something like that.
They think like, oh, something's wrong with him or her,
like they need psych like they're weak, they're not strong
as Unfortunately, I mean its to them. Oh that's horrible.
I think that's a society thing though too. I think
society was doing all that unfortunately.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
Yeah, And then think also if you're if you're a
police officer and you're just seen a traumatic event, it's
not the nine typical nine to five job right right where.
You know, Hey, honey, how how was work today?

Speaker 7 (01:09:33):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:09:33):
So and so got a new promotion and I got
a new office, and everything went fine, No, I just
a police officer comes home, you know, they take their
bulletproof vest off and hang up their duty belt, and
they're trying to not remember that person that they did
CPR on, that that passed away, the kid that they
pulled out of a pool that they didn't make it.
You know, someone that was stabbed to death, or a
gunshot victim, or somebody you know in real bad shape

(01:09:56):
in a car accident. These are all real emotions. So
we need more these conversations and like the ones we're
having right now, to explain that these are these are
real traumas and that the first responders have a very
very they carry a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Yeah, they did well, and just like victims are real
people and we need to humanize them, so are the cops, right,
the cops that are experiencing this. I just watched a
body cam footage of I think it was out of Baltimore,
and it was a couple of cops pulled this woman
over and in her trunk in a suitcase for two children.
And when they discovered this, these cops broke down. I

(01:10:34):
mean it was and they were they were very upset,
and it really humanized I don't know why I didn't
think about cops as being, you know, having these kinds
of problems, but they were horrified and so sad. They
were babies, you know, And so I mean, it is
important to remember that police officers and law enforcement and

(01:10:54):
first responders are human and they have to witness the
most horrific thing on the worst stay possible for someone.
And we need to be a little bit nicer to cops,
even though I.

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
Don't want to be to the nice ones we do,
but I will say and be totally transparent and honest
that you know, there's people that shouldn't be wearing their right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
That's in every profession, right, like in every profession, people
probably shouldn't be doing those jobs. But in the case
of like cops, though, they wield a lot of power.
So there's a bad power dynamic with those bad people.
But hopefully those are a foreign few between.

Speaker 5 (01:11:29):
They are majoritia officer men and women in the United States.
Are they do it for the right reasons. I agree,
and and they're true professionals.

Speaker 7 (01:11:38):
And I think just off of what you said, body
of being, you know, surprised to see them break down.
I think it is also because so many of us,
myself included.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
You know, we grew up and.

Speaker 7 (01:11:51):
It's almost like policemen when women firemen and women are
superheroes and you just hold them in that and then
you think, you know, you don't actually think of, oh,
these are human beings and they need to actually deal
with these emotions as well. So, Enrique, I believe you've
called Cold Case Files Miami a mission.

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:12:12):
Is there an impact that you hope this podcast has?

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
For sure? Again, listen, if we can solve just one
cold case or get one step closer to justice, I
feel like it was all worth it. But beyond solving crimes,
I hope that this podcast helps. Like we just spoke
about humanizing the victims, humanizing the players that are involved,
that the public understands that police officers want these things

(01:12:38):
these cases solve just as much as the victims do.
And it's very frustrating for them too when they hit
you know, legal crossroads, when they hit a brick wall,
when they don't get people to cooperate for whatever the
reasons are. And there are many reasons why people won't
come forward and don't want to cooperate. People like Joyce
sap An episode four, a community leader like Laurence Webb

(01:13:01):
again in episode two, who just just begun rebuilding his life,
Or like the three women murdered in the early two
thousands whose stories Detective Zachary Scott that we spoke about
and that he helped us revisit in episode six, they
were more than victims. These were daughters, neighbors, professional students,

(01:13:22):
people just like you and I, right, like us, right,
and their stories deserve to be heard, remembered, and these
victims deserve to be to be honored. So I feel
that we're honoring them in telling their stories.

Speaker 7 (01:13:33):
Yeah, I mean, as as a listener, I couldn't agree more. Absolutely.
You know, it feels important what you're talking about in
the stories you're telling, And I'm proud.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
I don't know if this happens to you to you
do too. When you listen to your podcast, you don't listen, Okay,
you sound like me and my radio show. I try
not to listen. I don't like listening to my voice,
and I get really picky, and then why would Yeah,
so I overthink things. But and I listened to this
final product I've actually the first one, of course I heard,
was was episode one with Brian her Are. But I

(01:14:07):
was so proud of our team at iHeart and of
School of Humans because they really transported. They did it
such an excellent job, mixing in the stories and investigating
and helping me find the victims, family members and the
detectives involved. They did a phenomenal job. I'm proud of

(01:14:28):
the work that we've done.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
You should be. I mean, you are very well rounded.
Even just one is monumental and a closure for this family.
Like you said, I think I've used this term before too,
they're living in suspended animation, like their life is completely
on hold. Right. I had a cousin that went missing
for twenty one years, and you know, my aunt was

(01:14:51):
one hundred percent suspended animation her whole life, well not
her whole life, but a big portion of her life.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
How'd you deal with that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
She drank?

Speaker 5 (01:15:00):
But yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):
It's you know, she's gone now, bless her, but you
know it's it's horrific. So just just one family, and
that in the the butterfly effect that has you know,
outward to you know, extended family and even co workers
and friends and neighbors. You're changing so many lives by
just solving one of those cases. So hats off to you.

(01:15:23):
I mean that I really thank.

Speaker 5 (01:15:25):
You, thank you, thank you know what. To me, I
say hats off to the investigators, to the family who
keeps knocking on doors, and to all the people that
that opened up and that shared their their stories of
their their loved ones with us. Wow.

Speaker 7 (01:15:38):
And what can listeners do if they recognize something? If
they have information about a featured case in your podcast's actionable.

Speaker 5 (01:15:47):
Well, if something you you hear in the podcast, uh,
you know sparks, sparks some memory, or you know someone
who might have seen something or say something, say something
I would say, you know, speak up, contact your local
police department, or if you prefer to stay anonymous, you
can reach out to crime Stoppers. There's the national hotline
one eight sixty six four seven one tips where you

(01:16:09):
can visit crime Stoppers three oh five dot com. No
details too small. Something you think that is totally insignificant,
not important, could be that one missing piece that brings
in And it might be just.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
Such a small detail that ties that loop right. I
always tell people the details, the devils in the details.
The details matter. The tiniest, most insignificant thing can make
that makes sense that that tip you got ten years ago.

Speaker 5 (01:16:35):
Makes sense and that one little tip could bring peace
to a family right that's been waiting far too long.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Right. Wow, well, thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (01:16:44):
Thank you absolutely anything else, Enrique. We've held you hostage
and we just toss your time. But is there anything else?
Listeners should know where to find you, where to listen
to you. Anything.

Speaker 5 (01:16:58):
Absolutely, Thanks again, congratulate relations on True crime tonight. I'm
a fan. I host a nationally syndicated Spanish show out
of Miami across the country. We broadcast from two ninety
four point nine FM in Miami. I also host On
the Move with Drique Santos that runs nationally on iHeartRadio
from coast to coast on Saturday evenings, I'm probably hosting

(01:17:21):
Miami Cold Case Files. I've got a little bit of backlash,
like you're give in Miami a bad light with this podcasts.
Miami isn't just beaches in night life. We're a lot
of fun Miami and the three h five is home
to me. I love it. It's a Miami is a city
of secrets, cultures colliding, and the story is buried beneath
the heat. Cold Case Files Miami, we were digging deep

(01:17:42):
into the side of Miami. You don't see your coworker
post it on Instagram or on TikTok and bikini on
the on the beach sipping Pinacola. But these are true
stories involving true people, and hopefully we're able to bring
some closure, to much needed closure to these families that
there's family. Their lives have been turned upside down by
no choice of theirs, by these violent, horrific events.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
I'm so honored to meet you, like for real, I'm
not even honored. Thank you so much for being here
and for all the incredible work you're doing with Cold
Case Files Miami. You can listen to the podcast wherever
you get your shows, and if you have info on
a case, don't hesitate to speak up, keep it here
on True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:18:22):
Be safe and be well and have a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
Thank you, good night, good night,

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