In a continued mission to transcribe and archive informative interviews and briefings related to The Delphi Murders, we have transcribed a live panel-style session conducted at CrimeCon 2018. The panel titled “Delphi Murders: The Family Speaks” was hosted by journalist and former HLN anchor Ashleigh Banfield. Becky Patty (Liberty German’s grandmother), Mike Patty (Liberty German’s grandfather), Anna Williams (Abby Williams’ mother) and Sergeant Jerry Holeman (District Investigative Commander at Indiana State Police and FBI National Academy graduate), were guests. 

This interview discusses multiple topics of interest related to the Delphi Murders investigation, including origins of the first sketch, specifics of what agencies are involved on a daily basis, reasoning behind limited release of investigatory details, the media’s misrepresentation of Daniel Nations as a suspect, and more. Near the conclusion, audience members were encouraged to ask questions, and a touching story was shared about how the news of Libby’s quick thinking to film her killer ended up impacting a completely unrelated case.

       2018 CrimeCon Delphi Murders Interview Panel Transcript

Host Ashleigh Banfield enters the stage. She shares a short introduction and video about the case before welcoming the panelists. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to bring out to the stage if I can: Mike and Becky Patty, they’re the grandparents of Liberty German; Anna Williams, she’s the mother of Abigail Williams; and First Sergeant Jerry Holman, he’s the District Investigative Commander of the Indiana State Police, he’s overseeing this investigation. Let’s give them a round of applause for the bravery it takes to do this kind of an information series. 

Mike Patty, Becky Patty, Anna Williams, and Sergeant Holeman enter from the side of the stage. A thunderous round of applause erupts from the audience. Anna Williams begins to tear up. Ashleigh Banfield walks over to hug and comfort her and whispers in her ear “You’re going to do great! You’re going to do great things today, okay?”. Anna smiles and nods affirmatively. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Have a seat everyone. It’s been about a year and three months since the world completely flipped for this family. And Sergeant Holman, I think maybe the best thing to do at this phase would be to sort of give us a play-by-play, a short precis, of where we are in this investigation, and and where we’re going.

SGT. HOLEMAN: Okay, first of all I’d like to thank HLN and Ashleigh for having us. But most importantly, I want to take the family: Mike, Becky, and Anna. Because of them is why we’re here today. They have really helped us out. They go across the state and the nation setting up these media outlets and setting up the booths at festivals, and that really helps keep this case alive. We’re very appreciative of that. And secondly, all the law enforcement agencies that have helped us – there’s too many to name. Even Canada we’ve reached out. We’ve had tips from every state, everywhere in the nation, and we reach out to State, Local, and Federal Agencies to help us daily. And the communities. The county, the City of Delphi has just been — it is humbling at times. It’s overwhelming, the support that they give us. I want to thank them as well. And most importantly, the families of all the investigators as well. As you’re going to see, if Anna starts crying again, I’m going to start crying too! It’s very tough, we are very passionate about this case. And I want to thank all the families, my wife is here with me so thank her too. But most importantly, besides the family, is Unified Command. It’s made up of Lead Detectives from the FBI, The State Police, Delphi City, and Carroll County. That’s what we call Unified Command, and we’ve been together from day one working on this case as hard as we can, and we are utilizing every resource; State, Local, and Federal, to get to the bottom of it. So today where we’re at is, we’re here [at CrimeCon] because we’re still looking for that guy right there (points to photo of the suspect). We have not been able to identify him, and that’s who we’re looking for. That’s what we know. There’s a lot of things going on daily. We get tips and leads coming in on the tip line, and also the email line, and we’re a little behind. I think we’re at a total of 35000…over 35000…tips and leads. It’s again overwhelming, but we appreciate everybody assisting us with that, getting the information that we need. So, pretty much that’s where we’re at today. We’re not giving up. It’s not a cold case. I hate hearing those two words, it’s not a cold case! We’re still getting a lot of information coming in, and we’re still following up on a lot of things. So keep up the great work, and we’re ‘gonna get to the bottom of this. There’s a lot of people that are committed to solving this crime and we owe that to Abby and Libby, and these people right here…their families [points to Mike, Becky, and Anna]. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Sergeant, notwithstanding how difficult this is for you guys, it is critical to keep the case in the public eye because that’s how the tips come in. Is it true that after the Dr. Phil interview that you all did, Sergeant, that 140 tips came in?

SGT. HOLEMAN: Yes, that day we had 140 and I think that when people TiVo’ed it, maybe a couple days later, we got probably 500 by the end of the week.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: 500?!

SGT. HOLEMAN: And also Dr. Oz and Megyn Kelly as well. Every time we do a show like this, we call the tip line and give him a heads up because we’re looking forward to getting more tips and leads.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Anna, you know, I came and hugged you because I know that this is really grueling. How are you managing to do the appearances that you’re doing to keep this story in the forefront?

ANNA WILLIAMS: This is our new job. It is a full-time job, and then when we’re not doing this full-time job, we have other full-time jobs, and families, and things continue to happen in our lives. But this is still here. I just had a gal ask me earlier this week, “It’s going to be Abby’s 15th birthday this year, isn’t it?”, and I said “Yeah…they should be driving! They should have been doing their first formal this year in high school”. They should have been doing a lot of things but… we’re not. One of the things that they had an interest in was actually forensic science, which was kind of an irony. Abby was looking forward to doing her freshman year and including forensic science classes. So for them–and for her–we have to do this, guys! We have to find him! 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Mike and Becky, you wake up everyday. You’ve got your photographs. When you look into those photographs, are you re-energized? Are you reinvigorated? Does it give you a brand new day? Is this day by day?

MIKE PATTY: Yeah. Every day as I’ve said — and it continues — I walk down the hallway, see her picture say “Good morning”, and instead of hollering up-stairs to wake two girls up, I only do one now. Then I start to get…frustrated, is a way to put it. I think the anger of the fact she’s gone, somebody’s taken our girls from us, and that’s what drives me. I have to find this guy. I’ll do whatever it takes, go through whatever paces I have to go through. I’m not going to stop until we catch this guy or I’ve exhausted every effort that I humanly possibly can. We owe it to the girls, we owe it to our community, our state, our nation. This guy’s out there! The fact of the matter is, is there’s a killer out there who’s guilty of a double homicide. And he’s walking our streets. He lives somewhere.  Down the road from somebody. And I’m going to keep going and handing out flyers and going on shows and talking to anybody. I love when somebody says “I haven’t heard about this case”. Great! You’re a person I need to talk to, because you may know somebody, and share it with your friends and your network of people. Because somebody out there knows this guy…they know him. They may not know about the case yet, and as soon as they do all they need to do is call that tip in. Like Jerry said, he has a wealth of network going on where they can check tips and leads and the information is available at their fingertips. That’s all we need is that little last piece to that puzzle. Give us this guy!   

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I’m going to keep asking for our audio and visual professionals to toggle between the picture of the flyer and the picture of us on this stage, because I know if you’re [in the back of the audience] it’s hard to see us up close. I do want you to be able to see the images of us on the stage, but I also really, really, really want you to take photographs of this flyer. The tip line and hashtag #AbbyandLibby, this is the hashtag that you’d prefer that is used. There’s one really important aspect to the hashtag and to social media, and I think, Sergeant, you’ll probably agree: it’s not for your sleuthing. It’s for getting the message out and helping get tips in. It’s not for posting pictures of a guy you work with that you think might look like this person. That actually causes more problems. And so that’s a great message if you’re Tweeting, if you’re posting on Facebook, Instagram. These are the pieces of information, clean and simple, but let’s not try to become minor league detectives. It makes for a lot of stress, so that’s just one cautionary tale. 

If I can, Becky, I came out here before you came out and I said “in the last week we caught someone”. I think that dozens, if not hundreds, of people thought it would never happen. After 40 years, The Golden State Killer may just have been hauled in. He may just have to account for those heinous crimes in California. Does that somehow, in a far-reaching way, tell you there’s hope no matter what? 

BECKY PATTY: Oh yes! I don’t want to be here 40 years from now – my daughter told me I’m too old for that! But, I will be. I’ll be here. But you know, science has come a long way in 40 years, so it may have taken them 40, but with the technology today I have all the faith in the world that it’s going to be a lot sooner. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: So, Sergeant, the pressing questions are oftentimes the questions you can’t answer. It doesn’t mean that it’s not on the minds of everybody. I think most people want to know how did this happen? How did he do it? What did he do? Were those children molested, were they assaulted in unspeakable ways? These are all the questions that are out there, and I know you can’t answer them. Is there a reason in specific that you can’t? 

SGT. HOLEMAN: Well, a couple reasons. Number one is respect for the family. We don’t want to share any personal information that brings us back, although I mean they live with it daily. Second is to protect the integrity of the investigation. We do not want to share information that only we believe the killer or killers know. Because when we’re interviewing those people, they know the details, we know the details. There are very few people that know every detail. There’s some information that has been leaked out there unfortunately, but we know the details. We do get tips from…I’ll say…‘false confessions’, where somebody may say “Hey, I was talking to so-and-so and they said this about how the crime occurred”, and we can vet those out quickly because of how they’re telling us. We know the details. We don’t want that. It just makes the investigation harder, and a lot of people will tell me “—well you’re not going to get this guy to confess, you haven’t found him in 15 months or 16 months”. Well, he may not confess to me, but he might confess to somebody else, and if that person comes and tells me the details that only the killer would know because we’ve not released them to the public…I would love to. I would love to give all the information out and let everybody conduct their own investigation off of the facts, and not the information that somebody can share on social media. Social media is great, but it can be like Ashleigh said earlier. It’s very tough when people are doing their own investigations off of false information. But, we just can’t do it. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: It makes perfect sense. I think for those of us who work in crime, it’s ‘Crime Fighting 101’. John Mark Karr confessed to the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, and there were details that he didn’t know, and that was one of the number one reasons why they could exclude him fairly quickly from having been arrested and charged with that crime. So in that respect, I completely understand. But with what happened with the Golden State Killer, it  naturally leapfrogs me to say “Oh my god – do you have DNA? Can you access these public genealogy websites? Can that be the same successful crime-fighting tool for you, as it was for the authorities in California?”. 

SGT. HOLEMAN: That’s a great question. We will not deny nor confirm whether or not we have DNA. But, I think the public realizes that with a crime like this very, very rarely do we not come up with DNA. But, without going into great detail, I will tell you this. We have utilized every resource available. If the evidence is there, we will reach out to the DNA people that the, ah, what is the word you used?

MIKE PATTY: Genealogy?

SGT. HOLEMAN: —Ancestry.com.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: So, the genealogy websites. It’s now becoming a very tender area, you know? There could be reams of litigation that come down the pike because of the access to the information. However, if you sign up for these sites, you sign up for these sites, right? You have agreed to present your DNA! Don’t cry later on! But I can see how this can be a new frontier in crime-fighting. An amazing tool that comes with its limitations as well, but I was fascinated to sort of ‘test the water’ with you to see if that’s potentially an area that can be mined. 

SGT. HOLEMAN: We’re not going to rule out anything. If it’s something that we’ve already discussed, if it’s something we haven’t done…any new technology that becomes available we look into it. And we’ll definitely use whatever it takes, if possible.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I read reams and reams of articles…local, national. I watched national news stories. I covered this story, and one of the details that I came across made me sort of tweak slightly. And it was, I think you’ll remember, there were a couple hundred people who came out for faith hike after Abby and Libby were discovered? And I wasn’t sure if it was a hike to take back the evil that they saw happen in that area, or if it was a hike to see if they couldn’t find clues? Can you weigh in any respect as to whether: A) That hike didn’t yield any clues, any physical evidence, and B) Whether it might be worth generating another one of these hikes, and maybe it’s not a faith hike, maybe it’s an evidence hike, even a year later?

SGT. HOLEMAN: Not to my knowledge, no. We have– I don’t know about the specific one, maybe Mike or Becky can, uh—

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: –do you remember the hike?

MIKE PATTY: Yeah, it was Becky. I was traveling.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Tell me a little bit about it. 

BECKY PATTY: Some of the churches got together and they blessed the ground. People are afraid to go out there, and so it was basically we went out to ‘take our trails back’. That we weren’t going to let evil take over. So, that’s what that was about that day. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Would it, Sergeant, be worth it even a year and three months later to recomb, if you can get that many volunteers, to recomb the terrain? To find things? I know in the Casey Anthony, that particular case, there were pieces of evidence that were reclaimed in a circumference that far outweighed what they thought it could, much later on. 

SGT. HOLEMAN: That’s a great question. I can tell you that investigators have been out there many a times, and I know other citizens that brought us articles they found, and we’ve collected those and put those into evidence and done whatever we could with those items that that were located. So to answer your question, I think yeah, we have been out there several times since February 13th 2017, and we will continue to go out there. There’s people that go out there just because they feel like they get closer to the crime and feel like they need to go out there to help with them, motivating them, to do the investigation. But yeah, I don’t necessarily encourage them to go out there without permission because it is private property, and sometimes we overstep our welcome or boundaries there. But if you did it the right way, and somebody finds something and they do it the right way, and contact police right away so we can collect it properly, then I would say yeah, it could be beneficial.

 ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Just a show of hands in the audience if I could. How many of you saw coverage on local or national news of this case? [The majority of audience members raise their hands]. How many of you did not? [Far less hands are raised]. So far more of you saw coverage of this case than did not. For those of you who saw the coverage, and for those of you who did not see the coverage, a very important piece of evidence that was recovered in this case came from the girl’s cell phone. It was an audio clip of the man’s voice. We’ve looped it several times because it is a split second, so to hear it several times is helpful. To get that out on social media… to continue to hear that… just might tweak someone’s memory of someone who sounds like that. Can I ask our audio-visual professionals that they can roll that clip of that sound?

[Looped clip of killer saying “Down the hill” is played for the audience].

“Down the hill. Down the hill”. This was Libby’s cell phone, wasn’t it? 

MIKE PATTY: That’s correct.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Yeah. Libby was able to not only capture that audio, she captured that image. That grainy image of that suspect. I mean really [audience begins applauding], honestly….the hero that that child was! To have the sense, to have the wherewithal, to be able to do that and to help us in our endeavor today is just nothing short of remarkable. I am curious about the sketch on the screen, Sergeant, because the grainy picture doesn’t show the face. But there were witnesses if I’m not mistaken who were able to lend information that got you to the sketch [Sergeant Holeman nods affirmatively]. Can you tell me a little bit about the witnesses? Where did they come from, what did they see?

SGT. HOLEMAN: I don’t want to go into great detail, but they were near or on the trail. We have several sketches but we’ve identified some of the people that they sketched, one of them was Mike after when they were—[audience laughs, causing the sentence to be cut off]

MIKE PATTY: [Mike, Becky, Anna and Sgt. Holeman laugh] —hey, I was out there looking that day when the phone calls came in.

SGT. HOLEMAN: —after they called the police. Let me clarify that, I know that. There were plenty of people out there, numerous people afterwards helping with the search, and we got a lot of sketches of those people as well, including Mike, I think. Maybe not? This sketch is several months, it didn’t just happen in one day–

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: –it came out in August, correct?

SGT. HOLEMAN: What’s that? [Having trouble hearing Ashleigh, he leans in]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: It came out in August, or July?

SGT. HOLEMAN: Yes.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Ok, so the summer following the February 13th murders. That’s when the sketch was released. So, it’s interesting to sort of get that information.

SGT. HOLEMAN: Why so long?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Yes, I’m pressing you here obviously. 

SGT. HOLEMAN: You can ask the tough questions, I’ll answer them. Again, it takes a lot of time. I’m not a sketch artist. The FBI actually–an agent from the FBI–did the sketch. And you know, I think when somebody sketches it takes like, 10 minutes [shakes head ‘no’]. It takes several weeks. But to get the information, to find the people that we believe saw that person that day near the time of the murders, that takes months. So we had to locate these people, interview them, find out who they really saw. Did they really see the guy on the bridge from the video, or did they see Mike out there helping search, or did they see somebody else out there helping with the search? So we had to identify those people, and once we felt like we identified the people that actually saw the guy on the bridge, then the sketch itself took, again, several weeks. They sketched it, looked at it, “No…that’s not correct”.  I will say that she still–[Clarification note: he quickly corrects his use of ‘she’ to ‘they’]—they, there’s a couple people— still aren’t convinced that’s the proper hat, but that’s the hat that the sketch artist could come up with as close to what the witnesses were describing. And I know the Superintendent [Doug Carter] said “Don’t focus on the sketch”, and we got a lot of calls on that. I think what he meant to say was…you know, where there’s four or five of us up here right now and if we pick somebody out of room right now and identify them to a sketch artist, there would be five different sketches. They’d have the similar features, as we believe this sketch has of the guy on the bridge, but they’d be a little different. So I think that what he meant is the person that did this heinous crime may not exactly look like that sketch. That’s what the person’s information and then the sketch artist had to take that information in and then put it on paper. So it’s not always going to be perfect, but we think that’s a really good sketch, and we think it’s really close to the person that we’re looking for on the bridge. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: You know, I’m glad you said that because we all think that if you see someone you could describe someone and get a great composite sketch. I recall when covering the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri the person who described what she saw, which lent to so much news coverage, ultimately had to admit that she saw it on TV. That she hadn’t actually seen the thing at all. That she thought she had! Her memory was that she’d seen it. But that ultimately she’d seen an account given on television, and then recited the account that was given on television. I think it was…you might all remember this…because it was very specific, the expression, she said that he was “shot down like a dog”, and “shot down like a dog” had been a quote that had run on the news that night over, and over, and over, and over again. It’s just sort of intriguing to see how people who see something, somewhere else, can ascribe that to what they think they saw at the actual moment. 

I want to ask you Anna if I can, the notion that when something like this happens, just like holding something back that only the killer would know is ‘Crime Fighting 101’, also looking at the families first is ‘Crime Fighting 101’. And it is excruciating for families. Can you help us to understand? Those of us who have not walked in your shoes, what it is like not only to be going through this awful grief, but to know that you’re being questioned and scrutinized? 

ANNA WILLIAMS: It’s the worst kind of famous a person can ask for. They go through your photos. They go through your friends. They call, email, private message people that you haven’t seen in years. They dig into everybody’s life, and they come to you saying “Well I heard, I know, somebody said…..”,  and I’m like “why are you even coming to me with this? You heard, you think?!?”. Whatever it may be, we found that social media is wonderful for the fact that we get these flyers out so fast. The post of the girls missing went out so fast because of social media. But, it can make people feel so very connected that they don’t realize how intrusive it really is—

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: —and angry, and troll-like.

ANNA WILLIAMS: Yes! Yes, that they take it upon themselves to send you things that you really don’t want to see, you don’t really want to hear. It’s not our jobs. We’ve all encountered somebody “I just know it’s this! I just know it’s this person!”. Please, please call Jerry at the tipline! Please call somebody else, because I can’t do this. I can’t do this. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD:  The parents of the children who were shot in Newtown…the 20 children…first graders, who were shot in Newtown, are trolled regularly. They’re called liars. They’re called conspiracy theorists. There are people who have been arrested for doing this kind of thing. Have you had any of this happen to you?

MIKE PATTY: [Sighs] I haven’t had anybody arrested but I’ve had my fair share of shots taken at us. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Really?

MIKE PATTY: Oh yeah, yeah. Social media, like Anna’s saying, has been a great tool because you can quickly get things out there and share it. And all of sudden you know it’s at a hundred thousand ‘likes’ or something you know, quickly, and it gets out there. But people jump to conclusions. I mean let’s face it—this guy, this sketch—I have features that resemble that. Most Midwestern guys, you know, with my build and stature can look like that! Alright, it’s not me! Jerry and Doug would not travel around the United States with us, you know? They’ve checked me. I was at work. I have to badge-in twice, I’m on camera. But people….they won’t take that. That doesn’t fit their agenda when they’re out there. It’s easy to hide behind a keyboard and take shots and say “It’s Mike Patty, he’s the worst guy ever!”. You know, I’ve been called everything, trust me. There’s been…I mean…it breaks my wife and my family down in tears, and I tell them “Guys, I’m not going to let that bother me!”. I’m not going to let these naysayers and people change the agenda of the focus that I’m on. I’m focused to catch this guy, and I wish people wouldn’t do it. Those people who do that, it’s easy to hide behind the keyboard. I’ve never had one of them come up to my face and say “Mike, you’re a child molesting killer type of guy”. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: You know, I’ve never had anyone walk up to me on the street and say “You’re Ashleigh Banfield! You stink!”. But I know many think that!

MIKE PATTY: [Laughs] Well, if they would actually take the time to get to know me, you know what I mean? If anybody knows me, I’m kind of an action-based guy. You know what I mean? I’m going to get my hands on—when you were saying something about “What about going out there and searching?”—yeah, I did. I’m kind of an engineering-type mentality. I grid system the thing. I put together a bunch of guys and we grided that thing and had a search party to look for clues and evidence. I worked with the police on that. They knew I was doing it. I said “Hey this is what I’m going to do, I got to do something”. I’m not going to sit by idly and just wait for that magic call. None of us are. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing out here, you know? You can ask Jerry. I said “Jerry, tell me what to do. What do you want me to do? Give me some focus, give me some direction”. [He said] “Mike, just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep the story out there”. Because eventually, we’re going to get this message to the right person who says “You know what, I think I do know that guy”, and that person is going to have the wherewithal to call that in. Make that call. And then eventually Jerry’s going to call me and say “Patty, we got it!”…and I’m waiting on that one. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: If you need any more evidence that Mike is really a nice guy, I just met him backstage, like, you know, 20 minutes ago for the first time. I don’t think anyone has ever come up to me backstage when I’ve been doing a presentation, or a speech, or a moderating of a panel and said to me—who’s been in television for 30 years–”You’re going to be okay! You’re going to do well out there!”. I’m like, “You could tell I was nervous?!?”. So thank you, I appreciated that! It was very, very kind, and very thoughtful. I appreciated it. 

So, let me ask you Becky a little bit about the relationship that you have with the police. You just said, you know, the Sergeant wouldn’t be out traveling with you all over the country to do these presentations if you didn’t have a good relationship and if he didn’t believe in you. But again, at the beginning, that’s a really tough relationship to establish because they’re the ones looking at you first. And you need them to find the killer, and they need you to figure out if you’re not part of it. How do you get beyond that extraordinary, awkward, and painful first dynamic?

BECKY PATTY: I don’t know that it really was with us, because as soon as this happened we went to them and said “Check us out”. We knew we would be the first ones that they looked at. “What do you need from us, what information? We will do whatever. Check us out. Check us two or three times so that you know it’s not us”. I mean, we offered to do anything they wanted, day one. And they were very polite and respectful in everything that they did. I’m here to tell you, I don’t care if it was one of my family, and I thought I knew who it was, I’d have turned them in. We wanted to get through that because we knew it wasn’t us, so okay…now get down to business. Let’s get down to business and really find him.  

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: In terms of the teamwork the police have had with you guys, we’ve been monitoring it as well. And Sergeant, the sheer volume of law enforcement officers and agencies that have come together on this case…we actually compiled just sort of a ‘quick look’ at the involvement, and the work, and the support that law enforcement right across this nation has dedicated to this case. Let’s take a look at it.

[Video of press conference clips and news interviews play, highlighting the multitude of agencies involved in the case]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I feel like I should call you ‘Jerry’ instead of ‘Sergeant’, because I feel like this is really personal. When I see you and all of your colleagues, all wearing different uniforms from different jurisdictions and detachments, I feel like this is really personal.

SGT. HOLEMAN: Yes it is [begins to get emotional]. I knew I’d start choking up a little bit [clears throat]. But, I want to go back to what you were asking them about how the police treated them during this investigation. I’ve said this multiple times, I’ve tried so hard to put myself in these people’s shoes…I can’t do it…can’t do it. I try. I don’t even want to be in my shoes let alone their shoes. But when I was standing at the bottom of that hill that night like every other investigator we thought, you know—you’re going to laugh at this, but ‘First 48’. We’ll have somebody in custody…and we didn’t. And then reality set in and it really hit home. But I will say this, we will treat these family members with the utmost compassion because they’ve been so cooperative with us. I feel Mike’s pain- I got two tips on me and I’ll probably get one after this because I have a raspy voice [audience laughs]. Now, the tip itself doesn’t bother me because I know I did not do this, I know where I was, I was working. What hurt me is they said I was “heavy set and had a chubby face”. [Laughs]

MIKE PATTY: Hey, that’s that’s better than what they said about me, they said I was “too fat to be the guy”, so good time to be chubby I guess, huh?!?

SGT. HOLEMAN: But it is, it does take a toll on every investigator involved. But it is personal because this is our job. Our job is to find the person responsible for this heinous crime and bring them to justice, like I said very beginning, for Abby and Libby and their families. And we will continue to do that and we will deal with the stress and frustration and all the bashing from social media and whoever else. That’s fine. Come to us though, like they said, come to us. We’re trained to deal with that, and we will, and we will continue to investigate this until we have it solved.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I want to say one more thing, and that is that there are two ways of solving crimes. There’s the work that you’re doing, which is invaluable, and there’s the work that we can all do, which is invaluable as well. And to that end it extends with your surrounding community and your neighbors, your friends. People of not just Delphi, people of Indiana and the people across the country who have come out for you. To tell you that they support you in any way they can, even if just thinking of you. We’ve compiled a little bit of that, what it kind of looks like and sounds like as well. Can we play that?

[Video compilation plays, showing news clips of family and community members discussing the impact of the murders].

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD:  Anna, does it help you, does it boon you, does it support you to know that so many people are there with you?

ANNA WILLIAMS: It’s amazing. It’s like all you folks here, we didn’t see y’all come in when we were back there [motions to backstage] and then to come out here and go “You’re all here for us! For our girls!–”

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD:  —I think there’s a thousand people here. 

ANNA WILLIAMS: “—people they didn’t even know!”. And we’ve gotten an opportunity to speak with some of you and I hope we get to speak with more of you, and thank you for being here and praying for us. We hear that a lot, and we ask that you continue to do so. These years are going to keep going by and life isn’t the same for us anymore, and we know there’s a chance that one of you out there could help us finish this. So we thank you. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: [Addressing audience] And I’m going to ask you if you have questions for the panel, in a minute we’re going to ask you to line up behind the two microphones that are on either aisle way. You can start to get organized if you want. Try not to repeat the same questions, because we’ve already answered them. You can get organized. And I just want to ask you if I can Becky, while we’re waiting for the audience to get in line, one of the things in that package was the orange light bulbs that people are putting on their front porches. Can you tell me about it?

BECKY PATTY: Libby’s mom one day, she put an orange lightbulb out. Said that she wasn’t going to turn it off until we found the killer. And she told us about it, and she took a picture of it and people started sharing it and it spread. There was a lady in Buffalo that decided she wanted her whole town lit up in orange light bulbs. So she started calling some of the electric companies. She called GE, and then she called Westinghouse, and asked if they could donate some because you couldn’t find orange light bulbs anymore. They were gone. So she said “Could you donate some?” and they asked her how many she thought she needed and she said “Ohh, a couple hundred”. They said “You know, we’ll do that under the condition that you give them away”, and she said “Okay!”. A couple days later she was home and her husband came in and said “Uhh…your delivery’s here, there’s a semi!”. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: A semi?!?

BECKY PATTY: They sent…was it two thousand?

MIKE PATTY: A little over two thousand. 

BECKY PATTY: …a little over two thousand light bulbs that Westinghouse sent to them. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Wow! That’s great, that’s amazing! 

BECKY PATTY: So we gave away lots of light bulbs. But you know, I do some traveling, I do a lot of driving for my job.

ANNA WILLIAMS: Every morning!

BECKY PATTY: And you go driving out there in the middle of the country and somewhere, in the middle of the day, there will be an orange light bulb on. Those people don’t realize what that light bulb means to us. It’s just a light bulb, but…that means so much, when you drive by and see those light bulbs.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: [To audience] Put your light bulb on, guys. Put your light bulb on, orange light bulb. Can we take a question over here? Maybe just say your name first.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: My name is Becky Drumwright.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Hi, Becky.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: I really feel for you guys. I had a son that was murdered. We didn’t ask to be conjoined this way. It’s a horrible, horrible, feeling. My son was murdered 19 years ago and we feel like we know who did it, but there’s no evidence. I’ll never stop talking it up, I’ll never stop because he’s somebody. We lived in a small community. They know who did it but that’s not my point, my point is my heart goes out to you guys and I pray that you’ll get some closure in this. And I pray for myself, that I’ll get closure. I would like to appeal to you to please try to help, it’s like you said getting it out there. My son is not out there and I’ll never, ever stop talking about it! His name was Tony Drumwright, he was murdered in 1999 and it is on Facebook and places like that. The Private Investigator that’s been working for me, Sheila Wysocki, she’s a speaker here. She just did iPod…don’t know what that is but I’ll find out tomorrow. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: A podcast?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: Podcast! Sorry! See, I’m not any good, I can’t even use my phone. [Audience laughs]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: You’re doing great, though! Can you do me a favor, can you spell that last name so that everyone can look that up?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: The last name is Drumwright. D-R-U-M-W-R-I-G-H-T. Tony Drumwright. Tony was 15 years old. He was executed at our home. We had a wonderful family life, lived in the country, everything going really wonderful for us, and somebody murdered our son. My life’s not been the same. I’m going to find justice for Tony.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I think that Becky makes such an amazing point. That she didn’t want to be in this club, you didn’t want to be in this club…there are millions and millions of people who are in this club and don’t deserve to be and they can all be helped by all of us. No matter what it is you’re doing, just know that being there is a huge difference. But also, let’s put that flyer back up so you can photograph it with the hashtag #AbbyandLibby. And you can share whatever tips you might know…anything…get it out on social media on your feeds, and also the tip line at (844) 459-5786. Thank you so much, Becky. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: Let me say one more thing: I was president of CrimeStoppers for three and a half years in our county. So I saw the corruption that went on, and the covering up and it opened my eyes to a whole lot. It really discouraged me, too.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I hope that this gets people looking at your Facebook page for Tony, and I wish you justice as well.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: I do, too. We’re both parents of murdered children and I’m sure you’re affiliated, if you’ve not been contacted by that organization. They’ve asked me to come on all kinds of things for grief. It’s been 20 years, I’ve got to step back.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Well God bless you, and I really do hope that at least we can generate some interest in that Facebook page as well. Question over here? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: [Voice shaking, trying to hold back tears] I didn’t really have a question, but I had a statement. My name is Mark. I’d much rather not let my last name come out. I want to thank you guys. Two weeks after you guys did the Doctor Phil Show, my niece was assaulted in a park. She was smart enough to use her Snapchat to record the man’s voice because she watched you guys on Doctor Phil….

[Becky Patty lets out an audible gasp. Anna beams, and a look of pride comes over her face]

…and my brother was a police officer in our town and they had just arrested [the assailant] and let him out, and they recognized his voice. He was a transient that had just gone through– 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: —they caught him?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: Yeah, they caught him! And I just want to say thank you to your girl’s, and…thank you! 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Unbelievable! Mark, thank you so much for telling us that. Oh my God, thank you Mark!

[Ashleigh reaches over and touches Mike Patty’s arm, who looks flabbergasted. Everyone is clearly very touched by this story].

The bravery of Libby! She is crime-fighting, she is crime-fighting! That’s just incredible. Thank you for that, Mark. Ma’am?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #3: I have two girls, and I can just never imagine [begins to cry]. I do have a question, however. In this day and age there are cameras everywhere. I know this was in the woods, but were there entrances? Did he come out anywhere where you could see the people during that day that go in and out of the woods?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Sergeant? How about surveillance? 

SGT. HOLEMAN: There wasn’t necessarily surveillance videos on the trail, but we did get some from local businesses. I know that was a rule, and also trail-cams, I don’t know, deer hunters? So, we have that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #3: Was there anything more than what the—

SGT. HOLEMAN: —no. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: That’s the image, and that’s the sound that we’re going on. Plus that sketch from the witnesses that saw him. Thank you so much.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #4: Hi, my name is Emily. Thank you very much for being here. I wanted to know what we can do, besides sharing on social media, besides getting the word out there to our friends and family, and people across the country and the world? What can we do, is there something that you all need? Do you need support financially, or on a Facebook page, or volunteers for something? This is an amazing community and I know that I’m probably not the only one thinking ‘I have time’ and I and how can I spend that?

BECKY PATTY: If you want to help, we got a group. It is a Facebook page and we started it. It’s not to discuss the case, because we don’t feel that we’re able to do any more for them in solving the case. It’s called ‘Brainstorming for Abby and Libby’, and what it is it’s a group to do nothing but brainstorm, think outside the box, and let’s get his face out there. We want his face in every single store, gas station…in every town across America and beyond. We’ve had ladies that have contacted every Police Department, every County Police Department in the U.S. in all 50 states. It was, what, three hundred and fifty—

MIKE PATTY: —it was 1362 I think, or something like that?

BECKY PATTY: Counties. They did every police station. There’s a group of them right now that’s contacting every college campus and sending the flyers to all the college campuses to be put out. They’ve started contacting the campgrounds. There’s different places. They’re asking for some help to do the homeless shelters. If you’ve got time and you want to help brainstorm, ‘Brainstorming for Abby and Libby’…it’s on Facebook. We’d love to have you. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: It’s fantastic. Thank you for that, Emily. I do think everybody’s here for a reason, right? I think you really are emotionally connected in some way to this case. And share, absolutely. #AbbyandLibby is the hashtag and a tip line, again lets pop it up there, and photograph it and send it out. That’s a great way. I think it’s a brilliant, brilliant strategy. Think outside the box.

MIKE PATTY: I want to qualify a couple things. I think it was over 3,000 counties. Think about how many states there are and how many counties are in each state. So that was a big task for that group to send out over three thousand, you know, to each county. And also, in the flyer I just want to get this straight. In the flyer for this CrimeCon, if you look read in there it says ‘February 12th’ [referring to date of murders]. That is incorrect. I don’t want somebody to think that things got twisted around. It was just a misprint, okay? No conspiracy here, we’re not trying to cover anything up. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: The crime was on the 13th, 2017.

MIKE PATTY: February 13th is the day the girls went missing, that’s right.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: And if you see February 14th, that was when their bodies were discovered. So if you see those two dates, that’s the difference in those two dates, and there is no February 12th. That was the day your lives were the way they were. February 13th is the day your lives changed. [Pointing to audience member] Yes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: My name is Amanda, and I am embarrassed to say that I did not know anything about this crime before today. So, I was looking online before this event so that I could get some additional information, and it appears that a couple of days ago they took a suspect into custody who looks incredibly like the sketch, and I didn’t know if there were any details…like any additional details that you might be able to share about that?

SGT. HOLEMAN: Ahh, who are you talking about?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: In what community did they take a suspect into custody?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: [Reading headline from phone] “Daniel Nations, person of interest in Delphi murders, pleaded guilty to unrelated charges”. 

[Mike, Becky, and Sergeant Holeman chuckle. Anna makes a swatting motion with hand, seeming to indicate the headline is inaccurate]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD:  That’s a fascinating point, he was actually taken into custody some time ago.   

SGT. HOLEMAN: I don’t know who ever called him a person of interest? We don’t use that term or else we’d have 35,000 persons of interest—

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: —but understand, Sergeant, she’s seen the headlines and there were headlines suggesting this might be a person of interest….so you’re not wrong [Amanda]. 

SGT. HOLEMAN: I’ll answer this: we have no evidence to include or exclude Daniel Nations from this. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: Okay, okay. 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Daniel Nations, for anybody who remembers the story and maybe who doesn’t…and Amanda you bring up a really good point and thank you for doing that….Daniel Nations was a man who was in Colorado. He’s from Indiana. He was in Colorado on a hiking trail menacing someone with a hatchet, was it a hatchet? And so he was in Colorado and he eventually was brought to Indiana and questioned about this particular crime, and while no one has been cleared in this crime as a suspect, Daniel Nations is not a person of interest. And I don’t know if there’s anything more you can share about that, or if I’ve pretty much laid that out?

SGT. HOLEMAN: I’ll leave it at that. 

MIKE PATTY: Yeah, the only thing I’d like to add to that is just the fact that we’ve had a lot of tips. And being close obviously to this to this case you know, I kind of stay in tune with some of it. This was just one tip that happened to get caught up in the social media and the actual news media, and that’s what took it over the top. I’ll be honest with ‘ya, I’ve been battling that ever since that got released. I wish it never would have because you don’t know how many people we go to shows and they come up and they say—

ANNA WILLIAMS: “—you already got that guy!”

MIKE PATTY: “They arrested that guy, didn’t they?! Colorado, maybe?”. I’m like, “No, no”. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: Sorry about that!

MIKE PATTY: No, no, no, no, no! I’m glad you brought it up! I want to clear the air. We’ve got a thousand people in here, and it’s time to tell people, you know? We don’t have an arrest. We’re still looking for this guy, so… 

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: So, I have to confess that you can see us, and we can see a big monitor in front of us and a clock. And I actually didn’t even look at the clock because I was so fascinated with the conversation. I feel like this conversation could go on for another 3 hours, and unfortunately, CrimeCon won’t allow that. But I just wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of everyone in the audience for being as brave as you have been. And I’d like to just thank you all for coming and caring. Please photograph and share!

MIKE PATTY: Thank you, thank you.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Thank you so much! 

[Ashleigh rises to shake the panelist’s hands. Video fades out].

-End Delphi Murders Transcript / CrimeCon 2018-