Grandpa of Delphi double homicide victim: ‘Don’t consider this solved’
DELPHI, Ind. (WISH) — Police are investigating whether a man arrested in Colorado is at all connected to the Delphi double murder of two teenage girls.
Indiana State Police Sgt. Kim Riley said Daniel Nations is a “person of interest” but not a suspect in the murders of Liberty German and Abby Williams.
Nations was a arrested in Colorado on Monday for unlawful possession of a weapon. El Paso County police are now connecting him to another case and saying he threatened people with a hatchet on a Colorado hiking trail.
They don’t know if Nations is connected to the Delphi case.
“I’m hopeful that this provided the tip that we needed in this case,” Liberty’s grandpa, Mike Patty, said. “I’ve been through it several times over the past several months. Trust me. Lots of people called in. Lots of tips have come in. And they just obviously haven’t panned out.”
Police said Nations drove a car with expired Indiana license plates.
He registered as a sex offender living in Greenwood, Indiana, in 2010. Online records show he agreed to plead guilty to domestic battery committed in the presence of a child in 2016 in Morgan County.
Also in 2016, he took a plea for public indecency in Bartholomew County.
El Paso County police said they reached out to Delphi detectives after getting a tip, but police won’t say what that tip was.
“It is my understanding, without going into any great detail, that there may have been some similarities with what this individual may have been tied in with there,” Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby said.
Leazenby said he sees a resemblance between Nations and the Delphi sketch, but he said that’s not enough to make a case.
“It’s mere speculation and assumption. We don’t know until we do further investigation into it,” he said.
Nations also has a warrant out for his arrest in Marion County on drug and vehicle-related charges.
Indiana State Police said they’re trying to figure out where Nation was on Feb. 13, the day the girls went missing. Detectives said someone murdered Abby and Liberty after they went walking on the Monon High Bridge Trail.
“Don’t consider this solved until investigators say that,” Patty said. “Until I get a call from investigators, I don’t consider this an arrest. Once they have an arrest made and they call me, then I can say we have the guy.”
El Paso County police said they’re also investigating whether Nations is connected to a murder in Colorado.
Police said charges are pending for the incident in which police said he threatened people with a hatchet on a hiking trail.
