Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge

I'm hoping those unfamiliar with the case will be intelligent enough to ask the question "Who is the person blurred out of the waiting for a verdict scenes filmed by the defence?" (EP 3: 8mins 53 seconds to go. Because there is a single, logical assumption the individual is Mitch Westermann, the "fall guy" for the defence team's despicable leak of crime scene photos that resulted in the suicide of an individual who was a "true believer" in the Odinism theory and circulated them forwards.

This "documentary" was so exceptionally biased towards the defence team that they failed to include anything related to the fact the Franks Memo was not in any way shape or form a "Franks memorandum- but a press release to bypass the gag order, followed by a "trusted member of the defence team" leaking crime scene photos that purported to "prove" the theory (tree, branches) soon after its release.

Most obvious was perhaps the publicly available interrogation footage that was clipped that showed "DELPHI RESIDENT" (what kind of sick twisted moniker is that?) Kathy Allen challenging her husband to say "You told me you weren't up on the bridge that day".... Instead clipping to just after and portraying her as some kind of victim...

This was a disgusting and LAZY piece of propaganda in the hopes of more publicity and conspiracy theory support for appeals.

The producers couldn't secure interviews with key people related to the case, so used clips from Lauren Matthias's Hidden True Crime interview with Jerry Holman. Lauren covered the trial daily, and would have given you an accurate, unbiased account of the proceedings if you had requested it, having previously been a TV journalist... but you didn't want accuracy or fairness.

Many of us who cared deeply about Justice for Abby and Libby for years KNEW that there had to be a defence documentary in the making, purely from the spectacle they were intentionally creating. To see it confirmed with these "clips" is just disgusting.

If you want this documentary to be taken seriously, you need to add a supplementary episode that brings up the details of the crime scene photos leak, the defence team quitting instead of being publicly reprimanded for their egregious breach of the gag order, the death that occurred as a DIRECT RESULT of their "press release" pretending to be a franks memo and subsequent investigation into the crime scene photos leak, their attempts to have the judge removed, their utter unpreparedness for the evidentiary hearing to see whether third party suspects could be included, the laughable resume of Dawn Perlnutter....

The only part of this documentary that was "REAL" and valuable was the interview with Patrick Westfall describing the utter destruction to his life by being dragged into a creative writing conspiracy press release faintly disguised as a legal filing.

And of course the grace and poise of the Patty family, and Anna Williams.

Instead on focusing on the actual crime and the evidence they decided to go full throttle with the defence theory. A theory that was so flimsy it wasn't allowed at trial.

Really disappointing overall. The girls and their families deserve better. They got a little focus in episode one and then the remaining two episodes went for the shock factor, instead of the facts.

This documentary shines light on the "can't back down now we'll look bad" way of working that sadly a lot of small town detectives have. Another prime example would be "making a murderer".

When people want answers and the police have nothing, they go for anyone...at all costs. Even someone looking to help.

I don't understand how or why anyone would agree to a chat or should I say "interrogation" at a police station when they're just looking for a scape goat.

People need to know their rights and get a lawyer before anything is discussed.

Because no one is safe when the justice system is so clearly compromised.

Many other reviews fault the series for going too far down the conspiracy theory rabbit holes like the ritualistic/Odinism angles the defense team brought up unsuccessfully. But that's the duty of a defense team, especially in such a high profile, high stakes case as this one. That approach obviously caused unnecessary damage to the lives of some innocent people, but the routine, dogged police work ultimately showed that no one else was connected to the crime. The misplaced tip sheet uncovered by the volunteer staffer is another example of how routine police work often plays an important role, rather than the flashy technology and certainty of DNA analysis too often portrayed on TV.

The defense tried to make this discovery seem as if law enforcement had purposely misconstrued an honest attempt to help the investigation by an innocent man into incriminating evidence against an innocent man. But Allen changed his story several times, a classic mistake that incriminated him further at an early stage of the interview process. That gave greater cause to obtain the warrant to search his residence and find the Sig Sauer .40 caliber pistol, ultimately matched to the unspent cartridge found at the scene of the murder. He hadn't known about the cartridge left behind until the later interview when the investigator pointed it out, along with the markings matching it to his weapon. That revelation apparently caused his first admission and realization that "I'm f**ked". Had that information and other data been released to the public at the outset he would have gotten rid of the weapon to eliminate the most important link between him and the crime. The defense rightfully challenged the exactness of such evidence but not sufficiently to dissuade the jury.

The most important link was Libby's phone. At the start of the investigation, law enforcement ONLY released a single image of the "Bridge Guy" a few feet away from them, and the audio of the suspect ordering them "down the hill". But actually Libby had recorded an unbroken sequence from the "Bridge Guy" walking up behind Abby, then Libby suggesting they move off the path and then the "Bridge Guy" ordering them down the hill. They obviously had become wary of this individual but by then it was too late to save themselves. But most importantly the images and audio place NO ONE else at the scene moments before the murders that even remotely resembles any of the alternative suspects offered by the defense or the conspiracy theorists. The combination of all those elements made it difficult for an acquittal even without the confessions Allen made verbally and in writing, regardless of his mental state when he made them. I think the defense put forth a good effort, but the case against Allen was too good. If the defense could have placed someone else at the scene at the time of the murders with forensic or video/photographic/cell phone signal tower data for instance it would have cast reasonable doubt. But they didn't because it likely doesn't exist or else we'd have seen it by now, especially with an army of online sleuths looking at the case from every angle to come up with exactly that sort of evidence.

For people that follow the case for some time there isn't anything particularly new discussed here, I would expect a few years to pass before we are told the inner workings of the whole case.

As it is this is a slightly too long but engaging look back at the whole case as it's currently publicly known, as for the suspects guilt or innocence, that's up to the viewer but it certainly raises eyebrows when you look at how little they had to secure a conviction.

Will be interesting to see where the case goes from here but for now this is as good a look back at it as any other.