The Delphi Murders Were a Local Tragedy. Then They Became “True Crime.”

The Delphi murders is a case that every true crime commentator has jumped on; analyzing the eerie footage of the suspect captured by Liberty German on her phone before her tragic murder. Huge public interest has done little to find definitive answers for the murdered girls; instead operating as a catalyst for this vast amount of content. Aja Romano details this disturbing case, thus adding to the glut of information, but Romano at least uses this poster case of the true crime genre to question the ethics of this growing industry.

Nine days after the murders, police released an audio recording of Bridge Guy, now officially named a suspect, saying, “Down the hill.”

This was arguably the moment when Delphi stopped being solely a hometown tragedy and entered the annals of true crime fame — when the eerie disembodied audio, complete with the pixellated image of the killer, swept across media outlets nationwide, galvanizing interest in the tragic story of two young friends who died brutally, side by side.