Make wishtv.com your home page

Slain Delphi girl would have turned 14 Friday

DELPHI, Ind. (WISH) — Abby Williams would have turned 14 Friday.

Her mother, Anna Williams, can’t blow out the candles with her daughter because someone killed Abby and her friend Liberty German last February. Anna helped organize a tribute to Abby on Friday night at the Delphi United Methodist Church.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Anna said. “Happy for the most part. Trying to be happy. Planning something for her birthday just like any other party, any other year. She’s not here but we’re making the best of it.”

Police said someone murdered Abby and Libby after the girls went hiking on the Monon High Bridge Trail.

Detectives released an audio recording of someone saying the words “down the hill,” and a photo of their suspect, both taken off Libby’s phone. Officers still don’t know who the person is in the photo.

“You try to be grateful and blessed — and we really are — for what the community’s done for us,” Anna said. “But the other part of you says, I wish we were going fishing and I wish we were going hiking and I wish she was coming with me to my 15-year class reunion next weekend up north because that was something we planned on doing in January.”

Anna said she is still “110 percent” optimistic that police will solve the case.

“People talk about this being a cold case. This is not a cold case,” she said. “We believe they’re going to do everything they can and they’re going to find our girls.”

Sheriff Tobe Leazenby said detectives from the FBI, Indiana State Police and Carroll County are still working the case. He said investigators hear 50 to 100 tips every day.

He shared a message for the killer Friday.

“We’re still gonna find you,” Leazenby said.

The Williams have a family tradition for birthdays: no store-bought cakes.

From dirt bikes to “Charlotte’s Web,” Anna drew in frosting whatever Abby wanted that year.

Now, she wishes she could bake one more cake with her little girl.

“All those things that you just take for granted that we’re going to get to do,” Anna said. “We don’t have that anymore.”

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the tip line at 844-459-5786. Police said no tip is insignificant.

Never miss another Facebook post from WISH-TV