DELPHI — Day 5 of the Delphi Murders trial included testimony from a witness who claims to have seen "Bridge Guy" on the day Abby Williams and Libby German were last seen by their family on February 13, 2017.
PREVIOUSLY: Delphi Murders Trial: Day 4 | Focus on examination of physical evidence recovered at crime scene
Richard Allen is accused of killing Williams and German in 2017.
On Wednesday, the state called witness #19, Sarah Carbaugh, to the stand. She gave fiery testimony that lasted around an hour.
Carbaugh, who said she often walked her dog, said she was on the Monon High Bridge Trail on February 13, 2017.
Carbaugh, who described herself as “local as you can get," testified that around 4 p.m. that day, she saw a man covered in mud and blood walking alongside the road.
"I looked at him, but he did not make eye contact with me," Carbaugh said from the stand.
"I'm going to label him "Bridge Guy" because that's who I know him by," she added.
Later, Carbaugh said she was at home when she heard about an AMBER Alert. Carbaugh said she recognized the man shown in a photo on a local news as the man she had seen on the road on February 13th.
Carbaugh did not immediately come forward to talk with authorities. She eventually talked with local police investigators three weeks later. She said she had been traumatized by the murders. "My inaction was me overthinking and panicking. I was having a moment," she said.
Carbaugh saw a police officer at a roadblock in Delphi asking for tips regarding the case. She called that "a sign from God" to report what she saw that day.
During cross-examination, the defense questioned Carbaugh's account, claiming she changed her story during police interviews more than once.
Forensic Pathologist, Dr. Roland Kohr, who performed the autopsies on the bodies of Williams and German, was the next person to take the stand Wednesday morning.
Kohr had served as the County Coroner in Terre Haute. He said he had done 77,000 to 78,000 autopsies in his career. Kohr was called as a witness for the prosecution. His testimony began with a 30-minute narration of what goes into doing an autopsy and what the examiner is trying to learn.
The autopsy revealed Williams had a five to six-centimeter-long wound (approximately 2 inches long) on the left side of her neck, however, Dr. Kohr said it was not a deep cut, "only an inch deep" in the doctor's words. He stated there was some skin damage to the right side which he believes suggests the cut was made from right to left.
Dr. Kohr observed liver mortis on Abby's body, which he described as purplish areas where blood settles after a body has been in the same position for a prolonged time. He says they found liver mortis on her upper back and the back of Williams' legs.
"She'd been laying on her back position for long periods of time after death," he said.
Kohr said liver mortis sets in after a person has been dead for at least eight hours.
Dr. Kohr said there was something that looked like a smear on one of Williams' arms. He says that may have come when she was given Libby's sweatshirt.
Many of the people in the courtroom were visibly shaken as photos of the autopsies were shown on the large screen television. Family members cried often, and observers say at least one juror had a hard time looking at the screen for more than a few seconds and looked like he was going to throw up.
Kohr also testified about the autopsy he did on Libby German. He said German had four wounds on her neck, and possibly a fifth. Two of those wounds overlapped. Kohr observed there was an X-like pattern in the larger wound on German's neck. Dr. Kohr says it is likely there were two passes made that resulted in that wound.
He was unsure of what he called the middle wound. He believed it could have been a second pass with the weapon, but wasn't certain. He also noted a few small abrasions below German's neck. He observed there were changes in the pattern of the cuts, and said if a person was drawing away as they were being cut, it could cause some changes.
There were five marks on the edge of the wound on the right side of Libby's neck. Those marks were one millimeter wide with a space between them.
Dr. Kohr initially surmised a serrated knife was used to make the cuts, but says he thought about the cut marks in the past few months. He now believes a box cutter was used as the weapon. Kohr said he did not create a supplemental report because he felt it would be speculative, but not definitive.
Dr. Kohr was asked by an attorney what happens to a body with wounds like these. He responded, "Bleeding will not be under pressure. It would be slower. (It) would happen over several minutes. As blood volume drops significantly, the body will go into shock. Organs will lose function. (The person) will lose consciousness, but not (they would not be) dead right away."
The doctor estimated what he called a "very ballpark timeline for expiration" that was based on the position of the body. "Still sitting would take longer to lose enough blood at least five to ten minutes, maybe longer. Laying down would go faster than standing up."
As for Libby German, Kohr said her blood loss was more rapid than Williams', and he estimated she would have gone into shock more quickly because of that. He also testified she had blood on her hands.
He estimated German would have died in five to ten minutes, but guessed it likely would have been closer to five minutes based on the severity of her injuries. Dr. Kohr also noted that German had swelling of her brain due to less oxygen.
Neither girl had any signs of sexual trauma or defensive wounds.
Dr. Kohr testified he did not see any crime scene photos until this year, which was after his reports had been issued.
The doctor could not determine the exact type of weapon used or the length of the blade, but he said "anything from a pocketknife to a kitchen knife to Abby. (There is) no way to tell if it was right or left-handed."
For Libby, the doctor suggested she was dragged from another location based on the debris found on her legs. He also said the serrated area of the wound could be from the handle of an instrument (or weapon.)
During redirect, defense attorney Brad Rozzi asked Kohr, "You can't say a box cutter was used?"
Kohr responded, "Not definitively, no."
During a re-direct, an attorney for the state of Indiana asked, "What is the minimum number of knives that could cause all of these wounds?"
Dr. Kohr responded, "One. Just because there are other marks (that) doesn't mean it was a different instrument."
When Kohr left the stand at 12:40 p.m., the jury was released for lunch.
Special Judge Fran Gull said it was a difficult morning for the jury, so she gave them more time to have a longer lunch and to decompress.
The final witness called to the stand Wednesday afternoon was Indiana State Police Sgt. Chris Cecil. He says he has examined digital evidence for hundreds of cases during a 20-year law enforcement career.
Cecil volunteered to re-examine Libby’s iPhone 6s. His first written report was in 2019. The phone had been examined several times in 2017 after it was found near the girls' bodies.
Data revealed Abby and Libby each accessed social media accounts on the phone on February 13, 2017.
Data from the Apple Health app said the last time the phone logged movement was at 2:32:39 p.m. on February 13, 2017.
This is a timeline of Libby’s phone interaction from that afternoon.
Feb. 13, 2017
1:38:49 p.m.: phone call to Daddy-o
1:39:08 p.m.: phone was charging
1:39:24 p.m.: Call to Daddy-o ends
1:39:30 p.m.: 2nd interaction with messaging app
1:39:45 p.m.: Snapchat viewing
1:41:44 p.m.: Libby posted picture to Snapchat
1:43:49 p.m.: Posted picture of girls in car to Snapchat
2:05:20 p.m.: Snapchat picture of bridge with no people on it
2:07:20 p.m.: Last time phone was unlocked
2:13:57 p.m.: Video recorded :43 seconds long
2:14:41 p.m.: Libby tried to unlock phone with fingerprint
22:32:26 p.m.: phone likely died
2:33 p.m.: Screen was off
4:06 p.m.: Gets SMS message from Becky Patty (Libby's grandmother) saying, "You need to call me now!!!"
Feb. 14, 2017
4:30 a.m.: 15 to 20 text messages come in at once
No activity after 4:34 a.m.
The digital records show Brian Bunner, a digital forensic expert with Indiana State Police, rebooted the phone on February 15, 2017, as part of the police investigation.
Cecil testified that from 2019 to 2024, there continued to be new updates of software and programs on the phone, so they attempted to pull more data from it. The phone was reprocessed. Cecil said that when Bunner plugged the phone in to charge, it added some small amount of data, but it did not change any information.
Cecil said from the state that when Bunner shut the phone down on February15, 2027, it would have reset the power on/off log, which prompted the defense to ask, "We will never know exactly when the phone powered off?"
Cecil agreed.
Twenty-three devices taken from the home of Richard Allen on November 8, 2022 were examined by Cecil. He said data recovered showed no communication between those devices and Williams or German. Cecil added there were no connections to Allen having any connection to the girls' deaths.
Cecil testified that he did, however, find an internet search history regarding Abby and Libby in news articles on one of Allen’s devices.
On re-direct, Prosecuting Attorney McLeland pointed out that Allen's cell phone from 2017 was not among the 23 devices taken. Investigators say they have no idea where that device might be.
When the attorneys were finished questioning Cecil, the jury asked 16 questions.
Some of them focused on the reports generated from the data pulled from the phones. Another asked about a discrepancy between when SMS messages and iMessage were received on Libby German's phone. Cecil said he didn't know why that happened. He also said he had no knowledge of an AT&T outage on February 13th or February 14th.
FOLLOWING: Delphi Murders Trial: Day 6 | No other report of Allen on trails other than self-reported tip
WATCH | Testimony continues in Day 4 of Delphi Murders Trial
