On January 28, 2020, members of The Indiana State Police participated in an interview with the ‘ISP Road Show’ discussing the current state of The Delphi Murders & Flora Fire investigations. Below the episode is transcribed in its entirety, part of an ongoing effort to chronicle interviews and information of factual origin related to the Delphi Murders. With so many rumors swirling around the case, it can often be difficult to separate fact from fiction, and we hope being able to reference original source material will be helpful to those investigating the case.
PARTICIPANTS:
–SGT. JOHN PERRINE, INDIANA STATE POLICE (Host)
–SUPERINTENDENT DOUG CARTER, INDIANA STATE POLICE
–SGT. RON GALAVIZ, INDIANA STATE POLICE
ISP ROAD SHOW / DELPHI 2020 INTERVIEW UPDATE TRANSCRIPT
[Start]
JOHN PERRINE: Hello everybody, and welcome to The Indiana State Police Road Show. I’m your host Sergeant John Perrine of the Indiana State Police Public Information Office. To my right you will recognize this man from everywhere, Superintendent Doug Carter. So honored to have you on the show.
SUPERINTENDENT DOUG CARTER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
JOHN PERRINE: And of course regular guest up from the PIO Office downtown, First Sergeant Ron Galaviz.
RON GALAVIZ: Good morning John, thanks for having me.
JOHN PERRINE: Yeah. So the Road Show is brought to you each and every week by the Indiana State Police Alliance and Cops For Kids, a subsidiary of the State Police Alliance. For more information about our sponsor you can visit them at www.IndianasFinest.com . A special thanks to Emmis Communications, Miss Terri Stacy, Kyle Knezevich, and Matt Hibbeln for all they do to get this on the airwaves every week from corner to corner of the state of Indiana. We appreciate their efforts. And of course, Network Indiana as well. So, here we are Superintendent. This isn’t a show that we look forward to talking about, but it’s important and coming up on the three year anniversary of The Delphi double homicide. A case that you’ve carried very, very close to your heart for the last three years and just kind of an update on where are?
DOUG CARTER: Yeah, well, it’s hard to believe it’s been almost 36 months ago since Abby and Libby were brutally murdered. You’re right, the case lives with all of us. My job is to keep it at the forefront and I’ll do all that I can do to make sure that happens, and I apologize for my voice. It’s that time of the year. And I’m driven by their memory. I’m driven by their family, and that community. Remember, it was on the heels of the Flora Fire which occurred in November of the year before, of 2016.
JOHN PERRINE: That was devastating for that community.
DOUG CARTER: Devastating, it killed those four little girls. So those two cases in rural Indiana represent evil in America, because the City of Delphi is any small town USA. What I saw that community do and how they came together to support the family and relatives and friends and finally, us. I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life.
JOHN PERRINE: You know, and all three of us, we sit here together combined with more than 70 years of police experience. We can all close our eyes and see the faces of those victims of those crashes, and those cases we’ve worked. But this one had a unique feel because of the community outreach, and because we have a video. We have audio of our killer. And I can tell you sitting in that Command Center the week afterwards it just seemed like we were on the right track! And here we are almost three years later still working our tails off on that.
DOUG CARTER: You know John, since you bring that up, that’s what keeps me awake at night too. Because we can go back in time and evaluate. Not to compare, but to evaluate. Are we going in the right direction, doing the right things, asking the right questions, interacting with the right people? I can’t remember a time in my career when we had a photograph, sound, movement, and we’re one step away, because someone knows who he is! Every family member would know a family member if they looked at their body without their head. They would recognize the walk, the hands, the jacket, the hood…whatever that might be. Somebody’s living in fear and I wish they’d come to me, or come to us.
JOHN PERRINE: Yeah. And Ron, I know at the time you were on the other side of the state in Fort Wayne, but this is also a case that I’m sure you’ve followed very closely as it unfolded. Talk about the complexity of something like this, because we have the video and all those things and it seems like it should be so simple, but this isn’t a one hour TV show, this is real life.
RON GALAVIZ: You’re exactly right. And we get communications from all over the place on a daily basis asking “Hey, we have video, we have audio, why haven’t we caught this person?” And again, there’s so many complexities, so many unknowns. Questions that the general public has of us and the media has of us, we also have, and we would love to answer. So when we go back and look you know…oh goodness…about a year and a half ago in Fort Wayne they solved a thirty year old homicide case of a little girl. The April Tinsley case. That one was examined and re-examined and re-examined. It wasn’t dropped, it was just continually looked into until the technology caught up and allowed us the opportunity to advance our evidence. So, is that going to be the same here? I don’t know, I really pray just as the Superintendent does, that this doesn’t go 30 years. I’m hoping it doesn’t go 30 more days, or 30 more minutes to be perfectly honest with you. We’d love a conclusion right now…today.
JOHN PERRINE: Somebody knows.
RON GALAVIZ: Somebody does know, absolutely.
DOUG CARTER: Somebody knows.
JOHN PERRINE: And you know, statistics would tell us that we probably have come across the name, the person, somehow. Because we…this investigation…has spanned such a broad area. But we just don’t have that one piece.
DOUG CARTER: I think once we find out who did this we’re going to think “Yep! Yes”. I had the opportunity to travel with the family to Dr. Phil in Los Angeles, California. He was terrific. He was very welcoming, he didn’t sensationalize anything. It was “Here’s what happened in remote, rural Indiana, and it could happen in any community in America”. That was a terrific experience. I think it was for the families as well. Then a couple weeks later we went to the east coast and talked with Megyn Kelly. Same thing. I give both of those examples, John, because this is an opportunity for us to thank our media partners.
JOHN PERRINE: Absolutely, they were phenomenal.
DOUG CARTER: Oh my gosh! They kept this out front. There’s been some criticism, specifically of me, and that’s okay…for the amount of attention we’re giving to Delphi. We can’t compare them, they’re all different. Nearly 50,000 tips on one case, that makes it different.
JOHN PERRINE: Absolutely.
DOUG CARTER: So kudos to our media partners out there. Sometimes we fuss and fight with each other like brothers and sisters, but at the end of the day, just like Emmis and what they allow us to do here, gosh, it couldn’t be more great.
JOHN PERRINE: Just recently we were contacted by John Walsh and his show ‘Pursuit’ and they’re going to help us with this case as well.
DOUG CARTER: This weekend! Coming up.
JOHN PERRINE: So again, this is all hands on deck investigation. It has been. I don’t want people to think we’ve given up, that we’ve pushed out chairs back and said “We’re finished!”, because that’s not the case.
DOUG CARTER: No!
RON GALAVIZ: Not even close.
DOUG CARTER: I’ve said all along, once we finish we’re gonna start all over again. I don’t believe in cold case. With technology today, the way in which human beings communicate today, and with the interaction…I remember Jerry Holeman and the Sheriff in Carroll County saying once, “When we’re all done we’re gonna start all over”. That’s exactly what we’ll do.
JOHN PERRINE: Absolutely. And I can tell you First Sergeant Jerry Holeman has kind of lead this investigation…that has so many incredible people involved…but, I can assure you that there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t do something with this case.
DOUG CARTER: Oh gosh, yes!
JOHN PERRINE: Phone calls, e-mails, reviewing evidence…you know, he still, almost 3 years later, is still actively involved in this investigation.
DOUG CARTER: As is Jay Harper, who is one of my classmates. He’s been on the department 35 years. A young Trooper we assign there, David Vito, a tremendous opportunity for him to experience something of this magnitude. This is one of those cases that very few agencies in the country could handle, so we’ve had lots of partners. You know, Carroll County—
JOHN PERRINE: —well, we’re not even the lead agency, not on paper.
DOUG CARTER: That’s correct. That’s right.
JOHN PERRINE: Although we kind of assumed the perception of that, The Carroll County Sheriff’s Department is heading this up and we’re getting assistance from FBI, all the Federal Agencies.
DOUG CARTER: We’ve had hundreds, hundreds of people from the ISP involved in this and we will continue to for as long as I’m here.
JOHN PERRINE: And where can people send those tips if they do think “You know what, I’m hearing this, I’m seeing this…I’m just not real sure. I think it could be my neighbor but, ehhh…”.
DOUG CARTER: Well I receive at least 2 to 3, maybe more than that, a week directly. So I’m only going to give you my perspective. You can talk to anyone dressed funny like us, and I hope they’ll do the right thing and get that correct information. Our website is alive and well on our homepage of the State Police website. The Carroll County website, Delphi PD, all of those people that are involved, please, please, please…if you’re listening to this and have a bit of information that you think’s likely not very important, it might be to us! We have a completed puzzle right now. And it’s an arial view of what happened to those two little girls. The only thing we’re missing is ‘who’.
JOHN PERRINE: You may look at that photo and think, “Hey, my neighbor used to have a jacket like that”. Call us! It doesn’t mean that we’re going to go kick in his door with a SWAT Team, but we need that information.
RON GALAVIZ: Absolutely, I totally agree. You said in an interview the other day “We’re one tip away”. One tip away.
DOUG CARTER: One tip, yeah.
JOHN PERRINE: And so, again, let’s change because the community was hit with two devastating events in a short time. Let’s shift gears to the Flora Fire and talk about that. That’s still a very active investigation as well.
DOUG CARTER: It is, it is. And there’s a couple of components of that I wish we were able to complete. We haven’t been able to do that yet.
JOHN PERRINE: Our investigators are incredible.
DOUG CARTER: They’re awesome. Oh my gosh, they’re awesome. I will stand ready to support them at any hour in the day. We’ve travelled to multiple states in this country to try to find out who set that fire. Now listen, I don’t believe that anybody set it intentionally to kill those 4 little girls. I don’t believe that. I hope I’m not proven wrong. I think it was a consequence of a bad choice, and again, I hope somebody will talk to us one day,
JOHN PERRINE: In a short span of time…six…that community lost six young lives.
DOUG CARTER: From November to February.
JOHN PERRINE: I want to paint a picture for folks that maybe aren’t familiar with what that community looked like in the days after. I’ve never seen anything like it.
DOUG CATER: I haven’t either. John.
JOHN PERRINE: Our Command Center was packed to the ceiling with drinks and snacks and food. We had lines at the door of people saying “Can I hand out fliers? What can I do?”. And so, what can they do? Three years later, what can that community do?
DOUG CARTER: Keep doing what they do!
JOHN PERRINE: Yes!
DOUG CARTER: Keep doing what they’ve done. Now [jokingly] I would love to have the recipes of many of those dishes that were delivered. Oh my gosh! Oh my…I’m glad I didn’t work up there every day,
JOHN PERRINE: I was there for a week and gained some weight, I’m sure. More than the food, that community has raised funds. They’ve built a softball diamond for those girls, I mean they’ve just done so much! But gosh, wouldn’t it be great if we could just close that, that last piece of the missing and put somebody in jail for this.
DOUG CARTER: I’m not sure how that would feel, but I can’t wait. I know we’ve said this before, either one of these individuals [Delphi and Flora] whatever that might be that were involved in this, there’s multiple ways to resolve this in your mind and in your heart and in your soul, and I hope you’ll do the right thing one day.
JOHN PERRINE: Absolutely. So we have about three and a half minutes here. Ron, this investigation has gone outside and what people often do is they take to the internet, and they send us a picture of somebody they go to church with side-by-side with a picture of our sketch or one of them. And this is really kind of detrimental.
RON GALAVIZ: It really is detrimental because now you’re putting somebody out there…somebody else’s face out there…unknowingly, unwittingly, who may have absolutely zero to do with anything. And now you’re putting them in harm’s way. That is one thing that we really don’t want. So again, as the Superintendent said, if you suspect that neighbor, coworker, whoever that may be, please reach out to one of the many sources with which to convey that information so that our investigators, who you’ve so aptly described as hardworking an dedicated and burning the candle at both ends…they’ll follow up on that. They’ll go run that down and either verify or exonerate.
DOUG CARTER: And remember, we can’t give you a response to what we’ve learned. You know, that’s the difference between us. We have to talk about what we know, not what we think. I’ve heard some criticism about that. I understand it. “I’ve given all this information and never heard anything back”. Believe me, we’re keeping all that information, and remember the sketch is NOT a photograph! I believe the murderer is going to have similar characteristics of both sketches.
RON GALAVIZ: Great point, great point!
DOUG CARTER: It’s only a sketch. It’s NOT a photograph! So stay away from a narrow focus of what you see in the face.
JOHN PERRINE: Yeah. That’s a great point. That has been detrimental..not necessarily to our case, but to members of our community who are getting their pictures put out there. Once it’s put online, we can’t take it down.
DOUG CARTER: That’s exactly right.
JOHN PERRINE: They’ll call and say “Hey, whatever it may be, I’m not part of this, and I don’t want my picture out there” and—
DOUG CARTER: –and there’s been some damage done to people. That’s unfortunate. That’s the unintended consequences,
RON GALAVIZ: Yes, yes. It is unfortunate.
JOHN PERRINE: Lets reiterate. If you have information about the Delphi homicides or the Flora Fires, we’re asking you to contact the police. Anybody with a police uniform.
DOUG CARTER: Yes.
JOHN PERRINE: Because if you don’t have access to the internet, if you don’t know who to call…you see somebody driving down the street in a police car, you flag them down, and say “Hey, I want you to know this”, and they will point that information in the right direction.
RON GALAVIZ: Absolutely.
DOUG CARTER: My email. That’s perfectly fine, too. It will come directly to me.
[Note: Superintendent Carter provides his email address on the audio. Spammers are notorious for capturing email addresses that are listed on websites, selling them, & bombarding the recipient with junk mail. As a precaution, we have removed his email address from the transcript. If you need it, it can be easily found in the directory on ISP’s website. If you are having difficulty, feel free to contact us, we’re happy to provide it to you].
JOHN PERRINE: That says a lot. That’s not a filtered email, that goes straight to him. If you have information he’d be happy to get that in the right hands.
DOUG CARTER: I will. I promise.
JOHN PERRINE: Again, 3 years. Three years of laying in bed awake at night just wondering…
DOUG CARTER: [Unintelligible] stand in that church you know just a few days after that happened and the connectivity in that community was real special. Again, none of us from our own perspective will ever forget that,
JOHN PERRINE: So we won’t go into theories or concepts, it’s simply this: two young girls lost their lives, viciously, in Delphi Indiana. Four young girls lost their lives in a fire in Flora Indiana…and somebody knows.
DOUG CARTER: Somebody knows.
JOHN PERRINE: And somebody knows. And we need their help.
You’ve been tuned into the Indiana State Police Roadshow brought to you by the Indiana State Police and Cops for Kids. Thank you to my guests, Superintendent Carter, First Sergeant Ron Galaviz. You’ve been tuned into the current state of the Delphi investigation,
[End]
