The Delphi Murders: Kathy Allen Speaks Out and Other Pre-Trial Updates
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Content warning, this episode includes discussion of the murder of two children. So as Kevin and I record this episode on Monday, October 7th, we are exactly a week out from the start of jury selection, a.k.a. voir dire, in the Delphi murders case, which of course is the murder of Liberty German and Abigail Williams. Richard Allen is going to be the defendant in this case.

And there's a lot happening. So we wanted to take this episode to essentially discuss certain important things as we go into trial.

My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is The Delphi Murders. Kathy Allen speaks out. And more pretrial updates.

So let's start, Anya, by jumping back to something we referred to on the program a few weeks ago. At the end of one episode, we mentioned that there was a rumor out there that we had reached out to Kathy Allen and her husband Richard Allen about. And I think at this point, it's appropriate for us to reveal what that rumor was.

Essentially, the story going around was that Kathy Allen had told some people outside court that she now believed the confessions Richard Allen had been making and also that she now considered her marriage to him to be over.

And so if that was an accurate reflection of Kathy Allen's beliefs, I don't need to explain to you why that would be significant. And also, if it was not an accurate reflection of her beliefs, that would obviously be unfair to her. And also thrown into the mix is that

Even in the best of circumstances, sometimes communication wires get crossed, and someone may say something that one person interprets one way. That's not the way the person meant for it to be interpreted. So there's all sorts of potential problems there to try to get to what the truth is. So when we became aware of this story, we decided it was important enough to try to get to the truth. And as we mentioned, we reached out to people

Kathy Allen herself did not get a response. We reached out to Richard Allen, did not get a response. What happened this weekend, Anya? Well, this weekend we actually heard from Kathy Allen's attorney, a man named David Cloutier, and he was able to give us a robust kind of long statement explaining everything, and we really appreciated that. And we were also, I just want to say,

really heartened to see that Kathy Allen has representation as well. Yeah, I think some people are distrustful of attorneys and they go, if someone has an attorney, there must be something afoot. But

Maybe this is my bias. I think it's great when people have attorneys, especially when you are in a situation in life when you're thrust into an unfamiliar situation where all of a sudden you might be confronted by situations you never encountered before. There might be people coming out of the woodwork trying to do this or trying to do this or trying to get things from you. In a situation like that,

a lawyer can be your absolute best friend because your lawyer can help you navigate those waters and,

And also your lawyer is someone who you can talk to in absolute complete confidence because whatever you say to your lawyer, of course, is confidential. So I think Kathy Allen's obviously in a difficult spot. It's great that she has an attorney. Yeah, we think that's terrific. And an attorney is able to look after your interests and your interests alone, not anybody else's. It's just what is right for Kathy Allen. And so when you are a spouse, you're,

who is undergoing something as public and awful and chaotic as what she is undergoing with this case, I think you need an attorney to look out for your interests. And so I just, yeah, I think it's really important to stress that that is very welcome news.

And, yeah, we can sort of read the statement, I guess. With all that said, do you want to read Mr. Cloutier's statement? Sure. And as we've – it's going to stay in the statement, but we very much concur with this. This does not break any sort of gag order because this just has to do with the personal life of the Allens. It doesn't have to do with any facts of the case. So we feel very strongly that this is just, you know, completely fine. Yeah, Mr. Cloutier is a professional. I think he tailored this statement very carefully.

to stay within the boundaries set up by the gag order.

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Quote, the following is in response to questions directed to Kathy Allen. Kathy, my name is David Dave Cloutier. I've been a licensed attorney in Indiana for over 28 years, practicing in South Bend and handling personal injuries, personal injury and wrongful death cases, primarily in north central Indiana.

I can confirm that I am privileged to represent Kathy on a pro bono basis with respect to advising her about protecting her interests related to the publicity surrounding the state B. Allen case in which Kathy's husband, Rick, is accused of the tragic murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams. Kathy and I were brought together by a mutual acquaintance who is a professional who felt strongly that Kathy needed advice and representation for herself.

Over several months, I've gotten to know Kathy very well. She is under incredible stress, but has handled it with grace, dignity, and goodwill. It has been a privilege to get to know someone of Kathy's strength. Kathy and I both have complete sympathy for the family members of Libby German and Abby Williams, and for all the people of the Delphi area. It's difficult to imagine how hard it must be for the families who deal with this loss to deal with this loss and the unspeakably horrible nature of what happened to Libby and Abby.

For various reasons, Kathy has scrupulously avoided public comment of any kind, even in the face of repeated false claims and misinformation both generally and specifically related to her. Kathy has no desire to do or say anything to prejudice any party's rights related to the upcoming trial. She has also been very careful to avoid doing or saying anything to add any pain or anxiety to the families of Abby and Libby.

However, recently, Kathy was contacted by the murder sheet from whom she learned of a claim by an unknown person or persons about Kathy's marriage. We appreciate the professionalism and journalistic integrity of that meat of the murder sheet in seeking comment before reporting. I am responding on Kathy's behalf. We do so in part because the allegation brought to Kathy's attention does not relate to the facts of the case or the upcoming trial, but is specifically about her.

In addition, Kathy's response is necessary because the truth matters and misinformation causes harm to her and her family. As very wisely said by Kelsey German in July 2019, rumors suck and they hurt people, as quoted in the Indianapolis Star. Therefore, I can confirm the following answer from Kathy to the questions you asked. The questions were whether Kathy considers her marriage to Rick to be over and now believes his alleged confessions.

Relatedly, it was asked of Kathy whether she has had some kind of recent change of heart and is, on that basis, going around saying these things. Kathy's answer to these questions is most definitely and emphatically no.

Kathy's marriage has certainly been profoundly affected by Rick's incarceration, and both of them are suffering immense stress. But Kathy loves her husband, believes in the sanctity of the marriage vows, and believes that the same presumption of innocence our legal system gives to Rick should be given in equal measure by her to the husband she loves. As to her husband's alleged confessions, it is not true that Kathy now believes them. But at this time, Kathy will limit her response to just that.

Finally, she has not been going around telling people these things. Kathy certainly has strong opinions and much to say about these matters more broadly. Perhaps in the very near future or further down the road, she may be willing and able to say more. For the time being, she's only responding to the direct questions you ask that do not relate to the facts of the case, but do relate to Kathy herself and her reputation.

With malice toward no one, Kathy prays for justice and for healing for all innocent people affected by the murders of Libby and Abby. She's also extremely grateful to Rick's defense team of lawyers, their staffs, and investigators. They have been courteous and kind to her and very conscientious about representing her husband. End quote. I think Mr. Cloutier is a very well-spoken person.

I'm not sure there's much for us to add or discuss about that statement. Is there anything you want to say about this before we move on? I just want to say we're immensely grateful to Mr. Cloutier and to Kathy Allen for providing this clarity, providing this answer. And we really very much appreciate that. And in addition to that, I want to say we're about to go into a very contentious, very dramatic trial today.

And I just hope that this statement and, you know, the references that Kathy Allen is making towards Libby and Abby's families as well, just reminds everyone that there are human beings at the heart of this. And there are people hurting on both sides of the aisle. And there are people affected by this. Multiple families are affected by this. The community of Delphi has been traumatized by what happened.

And I just hope that this can maybe inspire people to engage with a little bit of empathy, compassion. It's okay to have an opinion. It's okay to think, well, Richard Allen is innocent in my mind or Richard Allen is guilty in my mind. But let's at least have a little bit open-mindedness so we can hear out all the evidence, hear out where things are and think.

Having an opinion also needn't make us be angry or fighting with one another. We can just sort of try to come into this and extend some grace to one another, especially the people who are directly affected by this. And when it comes to family members of people who have been accused of a heinous crime, you know, this is something to keep in mind.

If a person turns out to be innocent of a crime, a family is absolutely correct to stand by that person. Would you agree with that? Yes. Because they didn't do anything and they deserve that support. If relatives who stand by someone who is accused but has not been convicted, that's also fine because perhaps they're waiting to hear all the evidence, right? That also should be fine. If relatives stand by a person who turns out to be guilty as charged, then that's

It may turn out that they didn't know things. And so without actually sitting through the trial yet, sitting here in early October, not knowing how this is all going to play out, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going to come out or not come out about Richard Allen. We don't know if he's going to be acquitted or convicted or what's going to happen. But at the end of the day, I think we should extend empathy to people who might be standing by him because that that's not an unreasonable thing in my mind.

So I think we just need to kind of keep that in mind when we're talking about people affected by a case. It's also people who may be close to the alleged perpetrator, to the alleged, you know, to the defendant, right? Right. So hopefully that's helpful. And again, we really appreciate this response. Indeed. Should we move on? Let's move on. So you remember recently the state of Indiana in the form of Prosecutor Nick McCleland's

filed a motion in limine in which they requested that a witness proposed by the defense to offer testimony, William Tobin, they requested that he not be allowed to testify because he was not really an expert. In essence, that's what the argument was. The defense filed a response to that today and,

I'll quickly paraphrase some of that, and I don't know if you want to go into some more detail about that. We certainly can. One thing the defense said was, well, you're a ballistic expert. She's no better than someone with a high school degree. That was interesting. And then there was also a lengthy section where they said, well, we actually have two defense witnesses, and the one that you're not objecting to, he thinks Tobin is great. Yeah. So that was an interesting argument. Yeah.

I'm really, really, really, really paraphrasing it there and cutting it to the bone. Is there any more substantive things you want to quote from those sections? Well, yeah, I mean, you are cutting it to the bone, but that is essentially the gist, I would say. What they're saying is that they want Bill Tobin, who is, you know, they say he's a 27-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with 24 years of experience at the FBI laboratory, to

They're saying like forensic metallurgy is relevant enough and, you know, he should be able to talk about this. And what they're getting at is like he's going to be there to sort of speak to we shouldn't trust ballistics in general. Obviously, Dr. Eric Warren is not going to be saying that he's going to be probably just.

You know, it's like they want him there to kind of almost like they have one of one expert who can sort of explain this without necessarily knocking down the whole of forensic science. And this guy Tobin is supposed to be more of knocking down the whole of forensic science. And in terms of bullets, at least in terms of tool mark identification. And, you know, the thing about it is, again, that in Andrew Baldwin's recent case, and this is going to come up, Caden Smith said,

the judge, threw out Tobin. So...

Yeah, let's talk about that. In the motion in Lemonade that was filed by Prosecutor McCleeland, he pointed out – well, Andrew – he didn't mention that this was Andrew Baldwin's case, but it was Andrew Baldwin's case, a case that Andrew Baldwin tried and actually lost with David Hennessey. And in this other case, the case of Caden Smith, they tried to have this gentleman Tobin testify in that case, and the judge said, no, he's not qualified yet.

He can't testify. And so Prosecutor McLean kind of just threw that in there at the end of his motion. Felt like a bit of a needling. It felt like a bit of a needling. And there was a response to that particular needling, which I will quote from. Quote, finally, the state cites the case of State of Indiana versus Caden Smith. This is a trial court case out of Marion County, which is currently up on appeal.

The court's order in Smith provides very little rationale for the court's decision to exclude Mr. Tillman's testimony regarding the firearms examination process. To the extent the state wants to offer up trial court level authority to support its claim, defendant Allen would draw the court's attention to the case of people of the state of Illinois versus Ricky Winfield, a circuit court case out of Cook County, Illinois.

Illinois, the Winfield decision was handed down on February 8th, 2023. The court in Winfield was critical of the discipline of firearms identification altogether. The court ultimately drew the conclusion that the state was entirely prohibited from introducing any testimony from their alleged experts regarding firearm identification specific to the case.

Judge Hook's rationale was articulated over in a 41-page opinion. The Smith case offered up by the state offers no such analysis. So that's basically lawyer speak was I'm really upset that you mentioned my case. There's a case in Illinois with a judge real differently. The Illinois case is an Illinois case, so I'm not even sure how much relevance it has to the state of Indiana.

That said, yeah, it is a very interesting case. And it is a case which could reflect a change in the way criminal courts in general start handling ballistics evidence, or it could just be an outlier. It could just be a one-off that we don't see leading to anything further. So

Yeah, I mean, like, let's contextualize this. Well, first of all, I want to mention we do try on this show to bring you relevant in-depth information. And sometimes we even get ahead of ourselves and bring you this information before it may be readily apparent why it's important. So I do want to mention if you want a deep dive on this Winfield case, we actually covered it in depth like a year ago.

We're like the oracles at Delphi. I'm not trying to brag, but like I feel like all these random things that we end up covering then somehow circle back around and become relevant later on. I don't – well, let's just – I mean I want to say I don't know why that keeps happening, but maybe we're just – Well, I don't think you need to be – Impressions. I don't think you need to be a genius to realize defense attorneys, if they find a case which says all ballistics evidence is bad –

And you have a case where there's ballistics evidence, which we have in Delphi. You don't have to be a genius to say, well, I bet the defense attorney at some point is going to try to figure out a way to cite this case. I mean, I just go back to that. Remember that moment early on where Brad Rosie was was citing all these like and then in Maryland and then in Illinois and Judge Gull, Judge Francis Gull. And it was like, do you have any Indiana law?

And it was like, oh, like, I mean, I think there's generally a trend where there has overt and they cite this in this filing. And it's all true. There's been a trend where there have been.

a scrutiny, a newfound scrutiny against tool mark identification. There, there have been a lot of changes to how forensic examiners in many courts talk about that, where it's less definitive and it's, it's, it's more scientific. And some people think of some people, especially around the forensic science area, they might think, well, that's, that's enough. Like we've, we've made those changes and now it is much more reliable. Um,

Um, others like journalist Radley Balco, who, who he interviewed about this, that, that specific case, uh,

you know, in that episode, he, I don't think, thinks it's gone far enough. So there's a debate. There's a people on both sides who are disagreeing. And we're not really weighing in on what we think. It's just we're more presenting to you that people are debating this. Whether or not it remains to be seen, though, I think whether or not the more sort of extreme side of things on either side will win out or whether we're just kind of in a new mode where it's like, OK, we've kind of

We might not talk up forensics as like, it definitely matches this gun. It might be more of like, it is not dissimilar to this weapon. So I think that's important to note. And it makes sense for the defense to be hearkening to one thing and the prosecution to be hearkening to the other.

And again, if you want a deep dive on that case in particular, it's an interesting case. It could be a bellwether. It could be a complete outlier. Who knows? I think Anya is the one that's going to prepare the notes for this episode. Anya, will you include a link in the notes to that earlier episode? I shall.

Anything more to say about this document? No, I mean, it seems like a, it's, it seems like from my perspective that this is a, this is an argument from the defense that makes sense for their case. They're going to be attacking the state's forensics examiner. I don't know that Tobin gets in, frankly, because it seems like they could just cross examine the state's examiner. And I, you know, I, but, you know, it seems reasonable for them to ask for that. And, and, you know, I don't,

I don't necessarily think what we've seen in the past that an Illinois case is going to carry the day here, though.

Yes. Should we move on? Yes. So let's go back for a moment and talk about a little bit about Todd Click. And we're going to talk about some of the online discussion that has occurred since our episode was released, which broke the news that Todd Click had indeed been arrested. We don't often respond to some of this online nonsense, but

But I think as the trial approaches, I think it is instructive to look at some of this stuff and just realize how far off people can be, even people who purportedly are attorneys themselves or at least claim to be. So one thing I heard.

was that obviously Anya and I must have gotten some sort of secret inside information about this Todd Click arrest. That's the only way we possibly could have gotten it. Who knows, maybe Doug Carter himself sent us a telegram or something. A bat signal in the sky. So this is actually an instance where I got permission to share with you all how we got this information and who the source was.

The source was a listener named Mindy who just saw that this was public information and she sent it to us and said, hey, look at this. Thank you, Mindy. We love you and we appreciate it.

And we looked at it and all the documents were there and we said, golly, let's quickly do an episode. And we did. Just to give you some sense on the journalistic process, when you get a tip from someone, it might be totally true, but you can't always run with it immediately. If Mindy or if anyone sends us, hey, Todd Click just got arrested and there's nothing on my case, then...

We're not going to run with it because that's not corroborated. It might be true, but we have to sit on it until we get corroboration. But when someone tells you something and you look on my case and it's all up, then yes, we are going to be able to report on that quickly. One of my favorite things.

conspiracy theories with this particular situation and again we're talking about this because it's instructive and it's something we want you all to be aware of for trial because this is going to keep happening but one of my favorite things was somebody was like they had this all they had this smooth episode ready to go and it's like thank you for the compliment this is an this is something we do for our full-time jobs so we have all the time in the world to deal with it and when you have

pcas at the drop ready to go it's very easy for us to put together an episode rather quickly that's kind of the nature of podcasting we don't need to like fire up the printing press so i just thought that was delightful because some of these like kind of conspiratorial things were actually compliments the the other one was uh that oh golly

It says here on my case that at some point this PCA was sealed. So the murder sheet must have acquired this PCA through some nefarious purpose. And that alone proves a conspiracy. And I found it especially interesting because there is a group online called

Profiles in courage, you know, and love to see that from the people who got their JDs from the University of Reddit. But I want to – because –

I just want to make it clear because it's possible that some of you may have encountered some of this information and been confused by it. And again, this is to encourage you to be skeptical when you see things online, whether they're about us or about others. Or about anything, literally anything. People do not know what they're talking about. These documents were not sealed on Friday when we released them. They were not sealed. So what happens is often –

When a warrant is issued and a PCA is filed to secure that warrant, often that document is sealed temporarily. And the reason for that is, let's say the police have finally gotten tired of Anya's serial stealing antics and they prepare a PCA and a warrant for her arrest. If they publish that warrant on my case,

where anyone in the world can see it and let Anya know about it, there is every chance in the world that Anya gets that information, she flees the jurisdiction, or God knows what else. Takes hostages, barricades myself, gets into a shootout with the police, all over Syria. So often, often you will see that judges will seal a warrant and seal a PCA

And when they do so, they will include language to the effect that the seal will be lifted once the person in question is in custody. Can I read the document on this? So that's what happened. As soon as Todd Click was in custody—

The seal was lifted. It became public. That's how we got it. And if you doubt me, Anya is going to read the actual document. Quote, motion to seal arrest warrant, probable cause affidavit, and charging information. Comes now the state of Indiana 80th Judicial Circuit by prosecuting attorney Richard J. Hertel and pursuant to IC 353411D respectfully requests the court seal the arrest warrant, probable cause affidavit, and charging information. The

The state is requesting that said documents be sealed due to the nature and circumstances of the crime. Further, the state requests that this matter be unsealed upon the arrest of the defendant, Richard J. Hertel, prosecuting attorney, end quote. So that's very, very clear. It's basically what I said. Let's seal it until he's arrested. Once he's arrested, it is public. Mindy saw it when it was public. We saw it when it was public.

So it kind of makes me wonder if these people who say they are lawyers and who are sealing it and not releasing it on Reddit, if they really are attorneys at all. Let me just – well, yeah, go ahead. And I think it's important to keep in mind, as we were mentioning earlier, everybody in this case is human beings. And whether it's about us, whether it's about other people in the case –

Maybe don't just start blindly attacking or making assumptions unless you really know for sure what you're talking about. That's a good lesson in life, I think. And listen, I mean, I think all of us have been in a situation where we see something, it ticks us off, especially online, and we want to say something. We want to act. We want to, you know, kind of get your hackles up. And, you know, that's human. And to err is human. But, you know...

There's no penalty in just kind of holding off, looking into things a little bit more and getting your facts straight before you comment or say anything. You know, I would say that that's usually prudent to not be impulsive like that. And I mean, I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt to a certain extent. Reading legal documents and understanding the legal process is difficult. I'm somebody I don't have a J.D. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a journalist.

I work with an attorney here and am fortunate enough to be married to one. So Kevin is here to often explain things to me that I don't understand. And I think over time, as I've read more and more legal filings, I've gotten a little bit better. I'm not perfect at it, but I've gotten a little bit better at trying to parse some understanding from them because it can be difficult to read legalese. It can be difficult to read very dry, long documents where, you know, it's not it's not a light reading. It's not, you know,

It's not reading like a fun, pulpy magazine article. It's dry. It can be difficult to get through. And things are...

are not always it's almost like a separate language that lawyers learn in in law school where they kind of are kind of trained in order to read that and so i'm not denigrating anybody for not understanding things or getting things wrong at first or coming to the wrong conclusion because goodness knows i've been there but the thing that you know the thing that can separate people who are doing a decent job

from those who are frankly spreading misinformation is checking and maybe holding off commenting before you fully grasp the facts and

because this kind of thing is unfortunately going to just happen again and again at trial where you have a bunch of people who claim to be lawyers but frankly certainly don't appear to have any legal knowledge or frankly people who are lawyers but are for some reason rooting so heavily for one side that they're going to just basically discard anything that they perceive as not good for their personal legal football team you know I

And that doesn't really benefit the public. It doesn't benefit anybody. It just, it's just lies. It's, it's, it's lies. It's, it's misperceptions. It's wrong. And like, I would just ask, you know, why do, like, if you, if you feel like you're so right, why do people constantly feel the need to spread misinformation? It doesn't really engender much confidence. It doesn't. And again, I just, it's not necessary because I think anybody who,

In this case, in this specific instance, anybody with any sort of reading comprehension can look at all of the filings and figure out very quickly why we were able to see this on Friday is because Todd Click was already arrested at that point. Yeah, he was already in custody. He was in custody, so there would be unsealed. It's not...

And again, I explained why the warrants and stuff are sealed temporarily. It's not about preventing transparency or public access. It's just about making sure that the person involved doesn't get a tip off. This is a quote I saw somewhere on social media once, and it's been –

Truly in my head as we go into this trial and I may be paraphrasing it, but I didn't make this up. I saw this floating around there, but I think it's applicable here.

Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works. Okay? I'm a person where I'm extremely bad at math, science-related topics. Okay? I think if you put me in the middle of a situation where you were explaining a bunch of those concepts or explaining concepts related where understanding of math and science would carry the day, I would probably be lost and it would be very...

Easy for me in my ignorance to say like, well, this doesn't make any sense. I just think it's magic, you know, but that's that doesn't make that true. It's just my own ignorance, my lack of understanding that would prompt me to say that. And I think that I think that people feel that the legal field and law and order and criminal justice, our criminal legal system is more accessible because it's something we we

consume a lot of through true crime or through fiction, frankly, and it makes it seem more accessible that those concepts are easy to grasp. And to an extent, that's correct. It's certainly graspable. But I think there is still a lot of lack of understanding about why certain things are the way they are, how everything specifically works.

And that can lead people to just jump to conclusions and decide, well, I don't like this. So it's a conspiracy. And that's not helpful because, frankly, if you do that and you're actually missing an opportunity to make relevant legal critiques or relevant critiques of our system that maybe are valid.

But but when it's just like this kind of born out of lack of understanding and everything becomes a whole conspiracy that doesn't do anything for anyone. Right. I mean. Right. But again when you don't know how anything works everything looks like a conspiracy. So it's better to be armed with the facts learn about how stuff works and then maybe you can point out hey this doesn't seem right though.

Because you're based on that platform of understanding beneath your feet. You've got a solid foundation. But when it's just like, you know, the murder sheet unsealed the documents with their odinous connections, you know, no.

And again, this isn't the most egregious example of how this has happened to us or to others. We're just using this as an example. Please keep this in mind when you see stuff either about us or others. Ask yourself, is this fair? Do these people seem to know what they are talking about? Yeah, the trial. Think about it for the trial because we're going to be busy covering the trial. And we're not going to be like looking at any of this other stuff for the most part, I hope.

Unless it gets really egregious. But you should be aware that there are going to be a legion of people who are just saying whatever. They're just going to pop off and say, you know, storm the Bastille because it's all wrong. And, you know.

I mean, maybe they'll be right or most likely they will not be right. My guess is that it's probably going to be a lot of misinformation in the case going on, swirling online at this time. And ask yourself, do these people seem to be doing what, frankly, we tried to do with Kathy Allen at the top of this program, which was

Before we spread a story, we tried to find out if it was true. It's always good to pause and ask the people who are actually involved. And a lot of people don't do that because, frankly, they're shy. They don't want to actually approach us and say, did you guys steal the PCA in this? You know, because they...

Or they just don't care about the truth at all. But, you know, you can always people can do that as well. I got nothing more on this. Do you want to move on? Yeah, this is I this is kind of related. But I just in terms of let's do some scene setting before before the trial.

So we've seen this rise of the conspiracy theorists in this case, but we should also note that there are people who sort of present themselves as experts, attorneys, even journalists themselves.

People who you might think have credibility who get sucked into this madness. And the thing that I think about, I'm going to go on a little non sequitur here, but I remember when I was in college, I'm dating myself here, but when I was in college, the John Oliver show came out on HBO. And the reason I bring that up is because I remember people would be watching it and I really liked the theme song.

So I downloaded it. It's a song called Go by Valley Lodge. That was kind of a fun, jangly song. And as I do when I like a song, I listen to it like a thousand times. And the lyrics that stick with me are,

Tell me what I want to hear and I'll tell you that you're beautiful. That is the dynamic we see again and again when we see people who do have actually relevant experience and things to say who then sort of get sucked into the conspiratorial mode. There's a lot of flattery that goes on. You see journalists who cover something that the conspiracy theorists like and then suddenly they're being talked about like they're Woodward and Bernstein. They're being messaged. They're being flattered. They're being courted.

And it's because they're telling these people what they want to hear. So, you know, they get subjected to that kind of.

being told that they're beautiful. And that does not work on everyone, to be clear. Most people are, I think, skeptical enough to avoid that. But for some, we've noticed, and we've noticed this certainly in Delphi, there is what I would call flattery jacking, where it's like you get hijacked with flattery. Perhaps your skepticism gets switched off. Perhaps you just start courting this praise even more and more. And

I think we should be also aware of that where people will be allowing their own expertise and their own credibility to be hijacked by what is essentially conspiracy theorists. And so being aware of like, could that be happening? Is this person, you know, now suddenly palling around online with a bunch of people who are behaving poorly? Are they being allowing themselves to be essentially hijacked in order to spread lies?

The narrative that they're being asked to spread. I think those are things to look at. Because I find it very concerning. And always baffling. Because it's like this person ought to know better. Why are they doing this? And then you see their comment section is like. Oh my god. You're the only truth teller. I love you. I'll name my first born after you. And it's like oh okay. Now I see what's happening. It's nice to be praised. And it's nice to be recognized. But there are people who will actually just.

and destroy their own credibility and siphon away their credibility in order to kind of keep that gravy train going. And I think we should be aware of that going into trial. And be careful where you get information generally, you know? I mean, be really careful because it's going to be, I think it's going to be really bad out there. The worst thing you can do to people who are doing a bad job and spreading misinformation is completely ignore them, block them, do not click on anything they put out there. Just ignore them.

Don't reward bad actions with your attention, your time, because your time is money to them. And your attention, even if they're not making that much money, is a huge gratifier for them. They're not paying attention to the hate clicks. YouTube doesn't split up clicks into like, these are the people who genuinely agree with you and these are the people who think you're a fool and like to watch the spectacle. It's all just clicks. All the same.

And, you know, I think we should say what we think about the trial management strategy in terms of people getting seats because a lot of people have asked us, like, what should we do? I'll say this about the trial management system. Well, without even getting into like what we like, there's not going to be a lot of seats. Yes. I was going to say what I was going to say was I don't like it. Well, it's just there's not going to be a lot of seats. There's going to be.

Very few seats. I hear different numbers. Maybe around 20 seats might be available for the public. Maybe. It's not clear who's going to get press passes, who's not. It's all up in the air. I think the odds are even if people come to Delphi and try, there's an excellent chance you're not going to get in.

There's an excellent chance you will be very disappointed. And we, you know, I wish it were different. I wish there was a different thing we could say and like, oh, there'll be, it'll be streamed to a different location and there'll be more seats there. But we just don't know. And I just, if you ask us, we're going to say the same thing. We don't know. We don't know what's going on. We're just trying to roll with it as best we can. But it's, I don't.

Before you blow thousands of dollars to fly to Delphi, you should at least be aware that the odds are bad. Yeah, we're all adults. Obviously, make whatever decision you want to make. I'm just telling you what the odds are. I do want to add that if you do make the decision to come to Delphi, one thing you can do that would be very much appreciated is to support local businesses.

There's a lot of great businesses in Delphi. Some of them I've grown so fond of that I actually follow them on Facebook. So I see the things they post. And in particular, the businesses around the courthouse, their businesses really suffer when there's court hearings in this particular case because a lot of locals say, well, we're just not going to go downtown while this is going on.

So they could use you. So if you're coming here, try to spend your money locally. I think it would be really appreciated. Plus you get exposed to some great businesses and you'd be able to meet some great people because –

Delphi is full of great people. Yeah. Like, especially the businesses that are directly around the courthouse. You have to understand that Delphi is a community that has been traumatized. Many people knew the girls. Many people knew their families. Many people...

just can relate to it because this is their city and it's, it's a small city. It's a city like any other city. It has problems. It has good things. We had a wonderful time when we went there with bacon fest recently, just a lot of really nice people in town, but, but there is an understandable impulse by local civilians, local citizens to stay away from the courthouse when trial, when, when pretrial hearings. And now the trial is happening because they,

You know, it's going to be a circus. And I think people find that intimidating, distasteful, it

It brings up bad memories. It's understandable that they do not want to be caught up in that, but that hurts the local businesses right next to there. And also it's just a matter of pragmatic considerations. If there's a lot of media buses and other people just parked all over downtown, it's going to be difficult for local people to get downtown to go to these businesses. Yeah, so the thing we can do is at the very least if we're going to be –

If we're collectively going to be camping out in Delphi to a certain extent is to give back to the community, patronize the local businesses, you know, see what we can do. And, you know, I think that would be a nice thing for us all to consider as we're planning this. Yes. Well, is there anything else? I think that's it. Who knows? Maybe there'll be some more filings for the rest of the week.

But, you know, and I've said this before at this point, I think trial is going to happen. Yes. You are backing off your earlier conviction. Unfortunately, Kevin is often the correct party when it comes to predicting these legal matters. So Kevin is the correct party in many issues. In many issues. OK. Not just legal matters. You're right about everything.

You heard her say it. It wasn't me. So she's an independent source. Corroboration. All right. Well, listen, I'll take care of yourselves. Thank you so much for listening as always. And just thanks. Bye. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode. Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

This show is phenomenal. Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people, overcoming tragedy, well-being, like he does it all. This is a show for you. He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space.

Just interesting people with interesting life experiences. And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward. I would liken it to like you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and.

really make it interesting for his audience? On a personal level, Jason is frankly a great guy. Yes. He's been a really good friend to us. And so it's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want. It's a really terrific show. We really recommend it highly.

Yeah, I think our audience will like it. And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show. He's been on our show a couple times. We've been on his show. He's a terrific guest. I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always am like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this. That really resonated. Like, I do quote him instead.

in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues. She quotes them to me all the time. I do. I'm like, remember when Jason said this? That was so right. So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think, and you like us, I think you should give it a shot. Give it a try. I think you'll really enjoy it. And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that.

there's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice. And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it. But this is something that almost can be like, if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime, I think this is kind of the life affirming stuff that can, can be nice to listen to in a podcast. It's, it's compassionate. It's affirming, but I also want to emphasize it's smart because,

Jason is a very intelligent, articulate person. This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show. I think you'll all really enjoy it. Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building. So we're really excited to be a part of that. We're fans of the show. We love it. And we would strongly encourage you all to check it out. Download some episodes. Listen. I think you'll understand what we're talking about once you do. Yeah.

But anyways, you can listen to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts. Very easy to find. Absolutely.

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