Purdue intramural lights headed to park memorializing Abby and Libby near Delphi Rather than scrap old light standards for west campus construction, Purdue and Duke team up get intramural field poles to Delphi for the Abby and Libby Memorial Park

Dave Bangert | Journal & Courier

Show Caption Hide Caption Delphi murders update: New sketch, audio, video released by ISP "We believe you are hiding in plain sight."

WEST LAFAYETTE – On a gray, damp morning on the western edge of Purdue’s campus, the banks of lights, half-hidden and about to come down in Monday’s fog, might have come in handy for four Duke Energy employees spending a day off busting stubborn nuts and bolts.

“Never easy, is it?” Dan Rhodes, Duke’s community relations manager, called through the gloom to Mark Snodgrass, Zach Stell, Zack Down and Travis Bell, linemen with Duke Energy’s Kokomo office.

The goal for the volunteers Monday: Detach 10, 65-foot poles and lighting rigs from their concrete bases at Purdue’s former Intermural Black Fields, put them on a trailer and deliver them to Delphi, the next pieces to the puzzle for Abby and Libby Memorial Park.

“We’ve been looking for a way to help for a while,” Rhodes said about a park slowly coming together in the names of Abby Williams and Libby German, two eighth-grade friends whose 2017 murders remain unsolved in Delphi.

“A lot of people want to help, and it brings the community together,” Rhodes said. “This kind of fell into our lap and made a lot of sense for us.”

The work Monday morning was the product of conversations started several months ago, thanks to connections Mike Patty, Libby German’s grandfather, had Purdue University Surplus Store, the place where the old, outdated or simply unneeded on campus goes to sold or offloaded.

DELPHI MURDERS: Is Abby and Libby’s killer one of Delphi’s own? ISP says, yes

MORE: Indiana starts crowdfunding effort for Abby & Libby Memorial Park

In the past two years, Purdue moved its intramural fields to a northern edge of campus and started prepping the southwest corner of State Street and Airport Road for another part of the Discovery Park District, a “live-work-play” west campus plan the university expects will bring more than $1 billion in private development and industry on some 400 acres over the next 30 years.

Specifically, what once were intramural fields will be part of Provenance. The $130 million subdivision will include 550 residential units – including a combination of houses, condominiums, cottages, townhomes and apartments – along with up to 90,000-square-feet of non-residential space, according to plans filed with West Lafayette this summer. The Carmel-based developer leading the 90-acre project expects the first home could be ready for sale by the end of 2020.

Provenance, though, doesn’t need light standards suitable for softball games or flag football.

Mark Schock, Purdue Surplus Store director, said he knew the lights would have to come down at some point for construction. He said the university and Purdue Research Foundation – which owns the land – didn’t have the equipment to do the job easily. Rather than see the poles get knocked down and scrapped, he reached out to Patty.

Patty said he and Eric Erskin, Abby Williams’ grandpa, toured the area and laid claim, as long as Purdue Research Foundation was willing to give up the 10 poles, lighting gear and softball backstops in the fields. Jeremy Slater, Discovery Park District director with PRF, called it “one of those perfect situations all the way around.”

Schock said, “We just brokered the deal and put Mike in touch with the right people. He really did the rest. … It seemed like the right thing to do.”

The 20-acre Abby and Libby Memorial Park, just northeast of Delphi and 25 miles from Purdue’s campus, has been a labor of love for the girls’ families since shortly after the Delphi Community Middle School eighth-graders were murdered while hiking on a community trail on a day off school.

“I’d say we’re about a year behind where I’d like to be,” Patty said. “But we’re making progress, considering the way we’re getting this thing done.”

The idea for the Abby and Libby Memorial Park started when donations started flowing as the homicides and the investigation – one that continues today – captured national attention. Money once pegged for a new scoreboard or bleachers for a Delphi softball field where the girls played eventually was set aside for L&A Park Foundation, a nonprofit organization overseen by the Community Foundation of Carroll County.

The state, in a deal brokered by Gov. Eric Holcomb, donated nearly 20 acres of unused right of way from the Hoosier Heartland Highway project at the corner of the Hoosier Heartland Highway and Indiana 218. The families found businesses with heavy equipment willing to grade the acreage, build an entrance and driveway and do more than $150,000 in in-kind work for nothing or at reduced rates.

Abby and Libby’s families have done much of the work themselves, laying out three ball diamonds, lining up utilities and trying to stretch more than $225,000 from assorted fundraisers as far as possible.

Last spring, Indiana’s CreatINg Places program – a state-backed crowdfunding approach through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority – agreed to put $50,000 toward an amphitheater and walking trail if Abby and Libby’s families could crowd-fund matching cash. They’d raised more than $66,000 as of Monday.

In October, Mike Patty and Eric and Denise Erskin cleared the fields – “We picked up rocks until we were blue in the face and sore in the back,” Patty said – so they could get the fields seeded and covered in straw.

Now come the lights from Purdue.

The poles Duke crews plucked Monday were hauled north of Delphi. The park is covered by Carroll-White REMC. Rhodes said Duke was ready to step with equipment and donated labor to do the work.

Patty said the poles will go on pallets at the park so the families can arrange to paint them. He said he expects to get foundations poured and the poles installed in spring 2020.

Patty said he was lining up help to come to Purdue to disassemble the backstops at the old intramural fields.

“Those backstops and lights are all we’ll need for our fields,” Patty said. “It just worked out.”

Eric Erskin said that seems to be the story about a park meant to honor their granddaughters.

“Every time we try to make it go a step forward, it’s amazing hoe people come out of seemingly nowhere and help us,” Erskin said. “That’s the message. It’s like they’re all out there watching out for us. … It’s just such a blessing.”

When will the first pitch be at Abby and Libby Memorial Park?

“I’m afraid to say,” Patty said. “We still have so much work to do. But we’re getting there. We’re getting there.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Contributions for the Libby and Abby Memorial Park near Delphi may be made to the L&A Park Foundation, P.O. Box 431, Delphi, IN 46923.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.

THE DELPHI MURDERS: WHAT WE KNOW

► WHAT HAPPENED: Abby Williams and Libby German were hiking on the Monon High Bridge trail, a popular trail near Delphi, on Feb. 13, 2017. When they didn’t arrive to meet their ride at the trailhead that afternoon, police and community volunteers searched the trail and the surrounding woods. The girls were found on Feb. 14, about a half-mile up Deer Creek from the abandoned Monon High Bridge rail trestle. The case drew hundreds of federal, state and local investigators to Delphi. Police have not caught or charged anyone in the murders.

► THE SUSPECT: In April 2019, Indiana State Police released a new composite photo of the suspect, putting his age in his mid-20s to mid-30s. Images and video on Libby German’s cellphone show a man walking across Monon High Bridge that day, wearing blue jeans, a blue jacket and a hat. Police also released a recording, taken from Libby’s phone, of a man saying, “Guys, down the hill.”

Police also said in April that they were looking for information about a car parking in an abandoned CPS building parking lot, at 6931 W. 300 North in Delphi, between noon and 5 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017. Police did not give details about make, model, color or other features of the car. The building has since been demolished.

► TIPS: Anyone with information about the case may call the Delphi Homicide Investigation Tip Line at 844-459-5786; the Indiana State Police at 800-382-7537; the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department at 765-564-2413; or by email to Abbyandlibbytip@cacoshrf.com.