Authorities hunting the killer of two young teens near an old railway bridge in Delphi, Indiana, are investigating chilling similarities to the unsolved double murder of two young cousins in 2012.

Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, were murdered in the woods after a relative dropped them off to walk the Delphi Historic Trails last month.

The case has sent shockwaves through the Delphi community and left residents terrified — not least because of its eerie parallels with the notorious double murder of two other young girls.

Lyric Cook, 10, and her eight-year-old cousin Elizabeth Collins were murdered hundreds of kilometres away in Indiana but similarities between the cases have proven too compelling for investigators to dismiss as coincidence.

Each set of girls were alone on nature trails when they were kidnapped, murdered and left in the woods on the 13th day of the month.

Lyric and Elizabeth vanished on July 13, 2012 while riding their bicycles on a trail in their hometown of Evansdale, sparking a massive search involving hundreds of police, rescue officers and volunteers.

A pair of hunters came across their remains in woodland at Seven Bridges Park in Bremer County in December that year. Their bodies were too decomposed to determine how they had been killed or whether they had been sexually assaulted.

After hearing about the Delphi murders, Elizabeth’s father Drew Collins called detectives working on his daughters’ case to make sure it was on their radar. It was.

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