Indiana police set Monday update in killings of 2 teen girls

Updated Oct. 28 at 4:12 p.m.

Police investigating the unsolved slayings of two teenage girls killed during a 2017 hiking trip in northern Indiana said Friday they will hold a news conference Monday to provide an update on their investigation.

Indiana State Police said officials “will announce an update in the Delphi Investigation” at Monday’s news conference but gave no indication what they would announce regarding the February 2017 killings of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13.

The state police advisory said the news conference will include officials from State Police, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, the Carroll County Prosecutor's Office and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The advisory said law enforcement and prosecutors “will not provide a statement prior to the event." State Police spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Piers said Friday afternoon he could answer no questions about the investigation and reiterated that no additional information “will be available until the Monday press conference."

A message seeking additional information on the news conference was left Friday for Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby by The Associated Press.

The bodies of German and Williams were found in a rugged area near a hiking trail on Feb. 14, 2017, one day after they vanished while walking on that trail near the Monon High Bridge. That bridge is just outside their hometown of Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis.

Within days of the killings, investigators released two grainy photos of a suspect walking on the abandoned railroad bridge the girls had visited, and an audio recording of a man believed to be the suspect saying “down the hill.”

Authorities have since released two sketches of the suspected killer, including one in April 2019 based on video from German’s cellphone that’s believed to be more accurate than a sketch released in July 2017.

Police also released video in April 2019 which shows the man suspected of killing the teens walking on the abandoned railroad bridge the girls had visited.

In December 2021, state police announced they were seeking information from people who had contact with someone who used a fictitious online profile to communicate with young girls.

State Police said at that time that investigators probing German and Williams' deaths had uncovered a fictitious online profile named “anthony_shots” that was used from 2016 to 2017 on Snapchat, Instagram and other social media platforms.