Shadow of the Bridge

The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland

Áine Cain Kevin Greenlee

The haunting account of the Delphi Murders, a double-murder case that has held an unrelenting grip on the American heartland for over six years.

On February 13, 2017, two teenage friends went for a walk in the woods just outside the small city of Delphi, Indiana. They should have been safe — but Liberty German and Abigail Williams never made it home. The next day, searchers found their bodies in a clearing. The two girls had been brutally murdered. Incredibly, in the final moments of her life, Liberty somehow managed to capture a video of the man who would soon murder her and her friend. This blurry recording showed a man lumbering toward the girls and then gruffly commanding them to go “down the hill.” A fascinated public obsessed over those clues. Speculation about the killer’s identity ran rampant on social media. Meanwhile, a sprawling law enforcement investigation led to some of the darkest corners of the heartland. Still, the case remained unsolved for years.

Everything changed in October 2022 when authorities announced the arrest of Delphi resident Richard Allen. But as the case began to make its way through the justice system, many began to question whether the small community had what it took to prosecute the case. They also wondered whether or not the police had even arrested the right man. Investigators, officials, prosecutors, and the defense attorneys found themselves stuck in an unprecedented firestorm of online controversy and subterfuge, with so-called internet sleuths hyping up conspiracy theories and trading leaks.

Now, Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee, the investigative team behind a series of bombshell reports on the case have put forth the only definitive account of the entire investigation. Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland goes deeper and offers more detail than what was shared on the popular Murder Sheet podcast, answering many of the questions that have haunted so many since the deaths of Libby and Abby. Most importantly, in working closely with the German and Williams families, Cain and Greenlee tell the stories of who these two warm, bright, and promising girls were to all who cared for them. With rigorous research and captivating prose, Shadow of the Bridge is a powerful narrative of a complicated, twisting story of tragedy and a community's determination to see justice.

Áine Cain is a journalist who previously worked as a senior reporter for Insider, where her beat included business-related crimes.  Cain is from New York’s Westchester County and studied history at the College of William & Mary.  She and her husband, Kevin Greenlee founded The Murder Sheet, an investigative true crime podcast, which has repeatedly broke national news in a series of dramatic reports on the Delphi case.

Kevin Greenlee is an attorney who received his bachelor’s degree and J.D. from Indiana University. His professional foray into true crime began in 2016, when he began investigating the Burger Chef murders and he came to represent a victim's relative pro bono. He and his wife, Áine Cain, founded The Murder Sheet, an investigative true crime podcast, which has repeatedly broke national news in a series of dramatic reports on the Delphi case.

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