DELPH – A common thread runs through Delphi these days, echoed most mornings in Facebook posts by Liberty “Libby” German’s grandmother, Becky Patty: “Today is the day.”
A year ago this week, on Feb. 14, search parties found Libby and her friend, Abby Williams, two eighth-graders at Delphi Community Middle School, killed near Deer Creek. On Feb. 13, an unseasonably warm Monday, the two friends had used the day off school to hang out on a popular community trail leading to one of Delphi’s iconic spots, the Monon High Bridge.
To this day, the killer remains a mystery.
To this day, Delphi – where sketches of a suspect are blown up in the windows of storefronts, and ribbons in teal and purple, the girls’ favorite colors, surround the Carroll County Courthouse square – remains confident in an investigation that brought in hundreds of local, state and federal offices but has yet to produce an arrest.
If today isn’t the day, that day is coming soon. Or so goes the hope, one year later.
“I think people have been antsy to get this case solved since Day 1,” said Shane Evans, mayor of Delphi, a town of 2,877 about 17 miles northeast of Lafayette. “I don’t think there’s a person in Delphi who hasn’t felt this.”
Here are some of those who have been touched, one year into the case of Abby and Libby.