DELPHI (WTHR) - People in Delphi planned a community walk on Sunday. Organizers say they want to take back the trails where two teen girls were found killed back in February and help families in the area to heal.
The deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German still weigh heavily on the hearts of people in the area, but they’re trying to pull together to support each other.
Pastor Todd Ladd, who presides over the United Methodist Church, helped organize a community walk. They took people on a half mile trip down the Monon High Bridge Trail. Libby and Abby were found near there, a day after they left to take pictures of the scenery back in February. The pastor says the greenery is the perfect backdrop to help the healing process.
"When the nature goes through a forest fire, it recovers," said Ladd. "So we've been through damage and we want to make sure we can recover as a community together and we do that in prayer and a lot of different ways."
One of those ways was through a physical cleansing, using water from Deer Creek.
"It's an area where something terrible happened, so we want to make an act that says we're reclaiming the land for holy purposes," said Ladd. "That could be a lot of different things, but the reality is it's time to reclaim this land."
"I've heard from a number of community members, 'take back the trails,'" said David McCain, who helped organize the walk. "We don't want them to be not using them and be too afraid."
McCain works on the trails and says they’re working on making this area safer for everyone. The real recovery will take time, but Ladd says they’re ready for it.
"I think it's going to be an incredibly long journey to begin with, but I know this," said Ladd. "If we walk together, it'll be good."
Community leaders say they’re also looking at ways to make the whole area safer. That could include markers every tenth of a mile, better signs and cameras throughout the ten mile trail, as well as the parking lot.
The pastor says one key part of their recovery will be finding the person who killed Abby and Libby. Police have looked into thousands of leads and are still investigating. If you have any information that could help, call police at 844-459-5786 or email them at abbyandlibbytip@cacoshrf.com.
