Indiana police have apprehended a man for allegedly leaking graphic crime scene photos related to the Delphi murder case. Mitchell Westerman, 41, of Westfield, Indiana, stands charged with one count of conversion after reportedly taking and sharing photos of sensitive evidence from the 2017 Delphi murders. The suspect is accused of leaking images of the crime scene, involving the killing of Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, while they were walking the Delphi Historic Trails in February 2017.
Westerman, a friend and former co-worker of attorney Andrew Baldwin, accessed the evidence photos at Baldwin’s office and shared them with others. The leaked photos, which made their way to various media platforms, delayed the trial for Delphi killer Richard Allen by ten months, prompting Baldwin’s team to withdraw from the case due to the leak.
The leak was discovered after officers interrogated an employee from the US Air Force Base, who subsequently took his own life. The case, which had puzzled law enforcement for years, was eventually linked to Allen through a bullet found at the crime scene in 2022. Defense attorneys William Lebrato and Richard Sremin, who replaced Baldwin’s team, cited the amount of evidence to review as the reason for a further delay in the trial.
Fourteen-year-old Liberty ‘Libby’ German and her friend Abigal ‘Abby’ Williams, 13, were found slain a day after they went missing while hiking through Indiana’s Delphi Historic Trails. Allen was arrested in 2022 for the murders, with his defense team later claiming that the killings were committed by a pagan cult dedicated to Norse mythology’s war god Odin. Both Baldwin and Rozzi, the original defense attorneys, described Westerman’s actions as theft, as he did not have permission to photograph or distribute the evidence.