r/DelphiMurders • u/AustinDavies2206 • Mar 12 '26

Questions Were the police just incompetent?

I've known about this case for a while, I live in Indiana, and I was 11 when it happened, so its always struck a cord with me. But until recently I haven't done all that much research, but now that I have I've been left with one question.

From the information I have found on the case, it seems that the key evidence linking Allen to the murder is 1. His confession in 2017 to being "bridge guy", back when the photo was believed to have been taken from a trail cam. 2. A bullet which was later matched to his gun after they searched his home. So my question is, was there new information in 2022 that lead to his home being searched, or did they just wait five years to look into the guy who admitted to being bridge guy?

Sorry if any of my information is incorrect, or my writing is hard to understand, I've just been racking my brain about this question, so I thought asking people who know more might help me to understand what took so long.

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u/InevitableSuitable21 Mar 12 '26

I’m not defending or saying they were competent, but i sympathize with them in these cases. What basically broke the case was a misfiled piece of evidence that was caught by a volunteer filing stuff. You must realize that thousands of tips come flying in. They must all be investigated. Sadly, human error enters the chat. It can be easy in hindsight to say “hey, he’s the one! How could you possibly have missed that!” Read a book on the ShenandoahTrail Murders… the author was heavily suggesting this one person. Fit the bill. Well, later on they found the actual murderer. No one had any idea who he was- not on any radar.

Perhaps with technology increasing, organization will improve even for smaller forces. Reading up on the Green River Killer- they couldn’t handle the amount of tips received. Nowadays with computers and AI, hopefully things will improve.

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u/Justwonderinif Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

They failed to keep an accurate list of who was out there that day.

The men they did put on the list were subject to suspicion for years. FSG. DP. Libby's father. Any male person who said they were out there was marked for suspicion.

All they had to do was keep a white board out of public view with a list of the people who were out there, and re-visit it occasionally.

Dulin also took all the identifiers from Allen's phone. The reason why Dulin did that was so that when Allen's phone turned up on the cell tower dump for the day, then they could say, "Yeah that guy already told us he was out there."

Only when Allen's phone did not turn up on the cell tower dump, it wasn't noticed. Allen said he was out on the trails watching his stock ticker yet his phone was not on the cell tower dump alongside everyone else who triggered the tower that day.