A Walk Through the Woods
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What is the case discussed in this episode of Dateline?
Tonight on Dateline.
It took my breath away. Here is this young girl with her friend out on this bridge on a beautiful sunny day. They have no idea what's coming.
Got a call and said that they had found the girls. What did they tell you? That they're gone. Their lives were stolen from them. Those girls matter. Were they out there to meet someone? Somebody was in contact with Libby, a fake persona. People wondered if there was some sort of a catfishing element.
There was a theory that the girls were killed in a pagan ritual in the woods.
We found Libby's phone. She secretly was able to videotape this person approaching them.
You also hear him say something.
Down the hill.
Down the hill. The voice of the killer.
The voice of the killer. They knew something was not right. They had to be scared out of their minds.
We've got a picture. We've got his voice. Where is this guy?
Two girls who had so much to offer. We weren't going to let up until we found this guy.
A grainy picture on a phone. A gravelly voice recorded in secret. Could these girls help solve their own mystery? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
Here's Andrea Canning with A Walk Through the Woods.
Winter was masquerading as spring, teasing those tired of the cold to step outside. Two girls set out for a walk through the woods.
This is very peaceful here. It is. I could see why they would want to come here on a day off.
We just saw the bald eagle. Yeah, it's a beautiful place. And then this is the trail.
A trail that ends here at an old railroad bridge.
This is kind of scary.
Yes.
There's rotted out ties. We're so high up.
Yeah. Yep. Water underneath us for part of it. I walked across that bridge and I swore I'd never do it again.
You wouldn't catch me crossing that bridge for anything.
I walked as far as I could that I was on my hands and knees.
One of the girls took a photo of the other, inching her way across the bridge. A final moment of innocence. Because the real danger wasn't beneath them. It was behind. A silhouette taking shape, growing as it picked up speed on the bridge, coming toward them. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Absolutely. When you think about these two girls, they knew something wasn't right.
Yep. and they were scared.
All they had left in that moment, a cell phone, each other, and a split second to act. Delphi, Indiana, population 3,000, more or less. A rural community about an hour and a half's drive north of Indianapolis.
Carroll County, Delphi, is a great place to raise your family.
Tony Liggett is the sheriff.
I grew up here, choose to be here. I want to be here myself. It's beautiful. People felt safe.
Still do, he says, though maybe a little less since that Monday, February 13th, 2017. The morning had started off promising. Blue skies, warm weather. Better yet, classes were canceled to make up for an unused snow day.
What's the plan for the girls that day, with this day off?
Well, there wasn't a plan. Becky Patty is talking about her granddaughter, 14-year-old Liberty German, and her best friend, 13-year-old Abigail Williams, Libby and Abby. They'd had a sleepover at Becky's the night before.
Libby came out, and she was sitting on the floor in my office. Just then, Libby's older sister announced she'd be taking the car out. Kelsey popped her head in and said, hey, I'm going to go to my boyfriend's house. And Libby jumped right up and said, hey, can you take us to the trails?
The public trails on the outskirts of town. Kelsey dropped them off just before 2. They planned to stay for an hour, then call for a ride home. The hour came and went. Becky called Libby. Was it ringing or was it going straight to voicemail?
It would ring and then go to voicemail. You're not really thinking anything bad, you know?
She alerted Abby's family that they couldn't find the girls. Then she reached out to her husband, Mike, Libby's grandfather.
And said, hey, Libby went to the trails. It's been about an hour. She's not answering her phone. Of course, it's getting cold. It is February. It was warm out during the day. So we're all thinking, all right, eventually we're going to find him here, right?
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4 chaptersSpeakers
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