greatest marylanders we've ever known and someone who is willing to risk her own freedom, her own safety, her own life in order to help others. that is patriotism, heroism, it's only appropriate that we have a general harriet tubman. >> a long time coming, but appropriate indeed, the patriotism, the heroism of the true north star getting her title after all. thank you all so much for watching. anderson cooper 360 is next.

how this video of a man on a bridge led to his arrest and connection, one of two teenage girls, one of which recorded this video and helped capture her killer. the president-elect asked florida congressman mike waltz to be his national security adviser. congressman waltz is a decorated green beret and active combat vet. he named earlier today congressman lee zeldin to run the environmental protection agency. candidate trump campaigned against wind power and electric vehicles and promised to cancel many epa regulations. the league of conservation voters, an environmental advocacy group said as a congressman zeldin supported what they considered pro environment bills 14% of the time. over the weekend the president-elect named tom homan border czar. homan served as acting director of immigration and customs enforcement in the

first administration and was a strong supporter of the administration's separation policy. earlier this year at a conservative conference in washington he vowed if chosen he would "run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen" and regarding the possibility that some of those facing deportation might have children who are american citizens, here's what he recently told cbs news' cecilia vega. >> reporter: is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families? >> of course there is. families can be deported together. >> homan will be joined in the deportation by stephen miller, whom the president-elect is expected to name as a deputy chief of staff. miller was an architect of the first trump administration family separation policy and supported ending birthright citizenship which is enshrined in the 14th amendment. at last month's madison square garden rally he was up front about what had been called his america first views. >> who is going to stand up and

say the cartels are gone, the criminals are gone, the gangs are gone, america is for americans and americans only? also today the president-elect named congresswoman elise stefanik to be his united nations ambassador. no doubt more picks to come in the days ahead, not to mention plenty of jockeying for advantage in mar-a-lago. cnn's kaitlan collins is nearby with that. let's talk more about the choice for the president-elect's national security adviser. >> reporter: this is a critical one, anderson, given everything going on in the world. the national security adviser's portfolio is often quite wide and they are dealing with whatever crisis arises at the time, jake sullivan, biden's national security adviser, of course, dealing with russia's war in ukraine and israel's war in gaza and those are likely to be two crises mike waltz will inherit as donald

trump's fifth national security adviser. he'll follow along the first four that were in office starting with flynn and ending with o'brien and mcmaster and bolton in the middle that trump had fallings out with and bolton did not vote for him in the 2024 election. mike waltz is a congressman from florida, an ardent defender of donald trump and is the first green beret to ever serve in congress. he's bringing that experience to the house armed services committee he chairs with him in this position. that will be critical as you watch this take place. i will say he is someone who backed donald trump's efforts to overturn the election in 2020, but from a foreign policy perspective which is what he'll be weighing in on from the west wing office with donald trump in office, he has more of a mike pompeo sense of the world than maybe more of a j.d. vance

america first policy. that is something we'll watch closely to which ideology wins out when trump is actually in office. >> how much influence is stephen miller expected to have as deputy chief of staff for policy, particularly on immigration? he was obviously a key player in the first administration. >> reporter: i would expect to see miller have a lot of influence in a second trump term. he had it the first time. he often minimized or downplayed his role in the advice he gave to trump. he wasn't someone who would really disagree with trump in meetings on policy, but often would either speak to him in the oval office or pull him aside and make his views clear. he did a lot of the speech writing for trump in his first term. often what you would hear from trump's mouth when he spoke at rallies or white house events were stephen miller's words. they are closely aligned on policy and from what i've heard, this time around now that he will be a deputy chief

of staff elevating him from his last role, i would expect him to have a lot of say-so because he's stuck by donald trump's side when a lot of people left after january 6th and he lost the 2020 election. he was there often defending him on television, traveling with him and remained closely aligned and obviously is expected to be a very influential voice on the mass deportation pledge and he's someone on the family separation policy that got so much backlash for the trump administration the last time around. he has still defended that policy arguing instead if it had only remained in place longer, it would have worked. >> what's your sense of the jockeying among trump allies at mar-a-lago? last time you said they were kind of everywhere, in hotels all around trying to get facetime or facetime with somebody who has facetime? >> reporter: it was kind of a free for all as it typically is

with trump around. it's been more streamlined mostly during the day where trump has been sitting down with his transition team and going through candidates' names, but trump is on the phone and seeing guests at mar-a-lago and having those interactions and it has been this moment where he seems to have decided on someone for one job and last minute changes it to another or someone falls out of contention and are brought back into the fold. keeping up with sources on this is a bit of a juggling act in the sense even the people we are speaking to don't always know who is ahead or who is getting the nod. sometimes they're surprised by reporting we have on who gets the job. it is very much still a jockeying sense behind the scenes. some people at home may say that's just staffing. that's not important, but in a trump white house staffing is everything and certainly this time around it will be even more so because he said it was one of his biggest mistakes his first time around, anderson. >> thank you. stay tuned for the source at the top of the

next hour for the guest brandon judd, former president of the national patrol council. joining us now gretchen carlson, i'm not sure how many remember stephen miller from the first trump administration, but he's been a central figure in immigration policy. >> and yes. he was the architect of the 2017 muslim travel ban as well which was also controversial, but to her point, we saw this as well with susie wiles who was named chief of staff, these are people who stuck with him through thick and thin, especially in the dark days of 2020 when he lost the election. i think what's very important about stephen miller is he has never gone astray from his strong stance on immigration. i think with these picks and tom homan,

former acting director of i.c.e., i think trump's going full force ahead with these mass deportations. the other night you asked how is that going to happen? we're getting more information now. the military may build detention centers to house these immigrants. stephen miller was on the record saying they might put all of these immigrants on empty land in texas near the border. they're going to no doubt use the national guard to help in these efforts and they're also going to penalize sanctuary cities who may not help them in their states to be able to do this by taking away federal funding. there's something called the burn justice assistant grant, gives $250 million annually to state and local governments. they might say no more of that if you don't help us. >> there were signs at the republican convention, printed out signs that they passed out saying mass deportations.

>> this reminds me of 2016 when he ran promising that he would appoint conservative supreme court justices and he did. this time he ran promising mass deportations and from these appointments seems like he's going to deliver. so anybody that thought this would be a more unifying, a softer, furrier, warmer trump who would perhaps want a second chance to be president of all americans is waking up this morning realizing that's not going to happen. there's a lot of fear in immigrant community, fear amongst dreamers and i think the fear is well founded. look, mass deportations means a lot more than just criminals, right? i don't know anybody who is against immigrants who come here and commit crimes and

i don't mean crossing the crimes. by committing crimes i mean crimes that would be crimes regardless whether they were committed by u.s. citizens or immigrants. i don't anybody who is against those people being deported, but if you're talking about mass deportations and the things they are describing, it's going to go much deeper. it's going to mane your friends and colleagues and your relatives and children that go to school with your children, people who do essential work in the united states that nobody else wants to work, back breaking work, disgusting work like, you know, killing chickens, disgusting work, like working in a dairy farm. that's what it's going to mean. i don't know what that means for the economy, but folks are about to find out. >> matt, stephen miller was talking about building up to 1 million people deported a year. a lot of folks have looked at help and said that goes way beyond to people to ana's point

people that committed a crime while here in the country. do you think -- it had a lot of blowback last time. do you think people are more accepting of it this time? >> i do. look, i've known stephen miller a long time. even those who disagree with him on policy will acknowledge he's a smart guy. he knows this subject matter. he can get into the minutia of how to enact these policies and it's no surprise donald trump would choose him to implement what he's talking about on the campaign trail. they've talked about it. president trump even said they would prioritize those that are drug dealers and convicted of crimes and those maybe connected to criminal gang activity, but to your question, anderson, americans are living the real world impact every day over the fact i believe it's 15 million illegal immigrants who crossed the border and they've seen the impact in their own communities, whether it's crowding of schools, pulling on the welfare net, health benefits and the rest of it,

hospitals and emergency rooms crowded. so americans, because they've been living it so much and not just on the border anymore, look, a lot of folks were criticizing ron desantis and greg abbott for what they did saying if this is a texas and florida challenge, it has to be an american challenge and started putting those who crossed the border illegally on buses to new york city. those folks in new york city are seeing the impact as well with overcrowding of schools and stretches on local benefits. yes, i do think the american people say this is a large part why donald trump got elected. >> i want to play what stephen miller said about mass deportations. >> reporter: when will the deportations begin? >> as president trump said, they begin on inauguration day, as soon as he takes the oath of office. >> to matt's point, sending the busing of people who had crossed over by some of the border states by some of the

governors and mayors there, that was criticized by a lot of democrats and others. it was very effective in terms of matt saying waking up people in a lot of other states to what states on the border were facing. whether you think it's waking up to or people seeing this and not liking it in their city, it certainly had a huge impact. >> it was. it was very effective. it apparently was also accusing haitians of eating dogs and cats and accusing venezuelans of having taken over aurora, colorado, and all the things that he said were very effective in driving fear into the hearts of americans and then driving them to the polls because of fear. the problem is, anderson, people talk about the cost of immigration and they don't want to talk about the benefit of immigration. there's a lot

of people who voted because of the price of eggs. if you think eggs are expensive now, go do a raid in a poultry farm in gainesville, georgia, or arkansas and then we'll talk about the price of eggs. coming up next, two big names who have been ruled out of the next administration. also ahead, elon musk hanging out at mar-a-lago and weighing in on hirings and who knows what else. we'll talk with tech reporter kara swisher. and later the conviction of two indiana girls and the video that played a part one of the girls recorded.

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the choice of congressman mike waltz to be president-elect trump's next national security adviser. it comes after many interesting side bars including this dissertation on social media. "i will not be inviting nikki haley or mike pompeo to join the trump administration which is currently in formation. i very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously and would like to thank them for their service to our country." back now with the panel. it's so interesting, the idea maybe there would have been an olive branch. nikki haley committed the ultimate sin, running against him in the primary. >> and saying the things she said about him, telling the truths about him during that time. that was quintessential trump putting that post out. it made it seem like mike pompeo and nikki haley asked for a position in the administration. maybe, probably not. look, nikki haley will run for

president in 2028. i believe that's why she was forced to endorse trump, because she needs his maga base to have a future political career and not surprised at all neither of them -- >> gretchen, gretchen. she was not forced to do anything. >> because she wants to be president. >> she was chosen for her political ambition. >> that's right. >> kamala harris lost an election. nikki haley has lost every modicum of dignity because after first criticizing him, then she took it back. then she ran against him. then she endorsed him. then she practically begged him to let her campaign with him and now he's saying by felicia. it truly is i find it incredibly embarrassing, a woman who had such a bright future, was one of the rising stars in the republican party, but i think what trump is making of the

through that tweet is that he wants loyalty 100% loyalty from everybody he appoints and that he wants maga people, not neocons, not people that are considered foreign policy hawks which i think both pompeo and nikki haley and marco rubio. >> matt, what do you think of lee zeldin being named epa administrator? >> i think it's a good choice. certainly if 2016 and the transition was kind of like a shotgun wedding, this one he's had a long term engagement. none of the people he's choosing are strangers. these are folks donald trump knows. he's know lee zeldin a long time and thinks highly of them. i've seen them campaign together. calls him the great lee zeldin. i'm not surprised congressman zeldin ended up in the administration and i think it really speaks to the other nominations and other appointments he's already made. these are all people you can disagree with on policy are

eminently qualified for these positions. there is no one who doesn't pass a litmus test for a pedigree, but they have to be people donald trump trusts. you need that. i don't care what administration it is. if the president of the united states does not have trust in his cabinet, they can't function effectively and because of the nature of the transition last time, he didn't have that relationship with his cabinet secretaries. it's not that folks can't push back. i've heard stories and seen it firsthand when someone disagrees with donald trump. as long as it's done in a way that's constructive, he usually receives it pretty well, but at the end of the day he's the president of the united states and gets to make the decision. >> this year everybody he's named has been in government in one shape or another. so they come with a level of experience and knowing how to do things that in 2016 he had a bunch of rich people who had never been in government. this is a completely different -- >> rich people, he has elon musk now. musk wrote on x about

elise stefanik getting the nod for u.n. ambassador. he wrote, "elise is awesome, but it might be too dicey to lose her from the house, at least for now." it's fascinating to me he is weighing in on kind of a granular level publicly about this, about rick scott in florida. >> we said this the other night. i think he'll be the most influential adviser to donald trump. it depends how long they last because they both have huge egos. she was not a pro republican and became hard maga in the last four years, been one of his biggest vocal defenders. i think she really made her mark for the ambassador job at the u.n. when she was so incredibly forceful with those college presidents who testified before the house committee about the campus protests, the israeli-gaza war and two of those presidents

resigned after they were questioned in part by elise stefanik. she's been also a very staunch critic of the u.n. it will be very interesting to see her i think in that role. >> it's interesting to think kamala harris was promising a republican in the cabinet and donald trump is imposing litmus tests on loyalty to him and loyalty to the ideology for lack of a better that he espouses. >> matt? >> i'll say real quick, i think every president expects most of their cabinet to be pretty loyal to them and what the american people voted for. it's not all that different than what most presidents ask of their cabinet members. the one thing on elon musk, too, this i think is a good thing for donald trump. he is bringing in advisers from outside and will keep private sector advisers. elon musk has been relied on now by nasa to get astronauts out of space, to be able to actually run a number of the functions of the

u.s. government has been unable to do. so we're already seeing how elon musk is stepping up with starlink in ukraine. i think this is actually a good thing. it shows outside ideas and ultimately despite the fact that yes, everyone so far has government experience, you need to keep some outside perspective to really deliver on the mandate he was voted for. >> it's been reported melania is not coming to the white house meeting on wednesday. i wonder if elon musk is coming instead. >> thanks so much. up next, how strong is the political alliance between elon musk and president-elect? journalist kara swisher joins me next.

newly released video of

elon musk in mar-a-lago on election night, his family mixing with trump's family. >> we have to get elon with his boy. >> absolutely. >> gorgeous, perfect boy. >> the video was released today by one of the president-elect' s granddaughters on her video blog and on twitter ky trump posted this picture of her and musk with his child. she writes, "elon achieving uncle status," multiple sources telling cnn musk has been at mar-a-lago every day since the election. joining us now kara swisher. by most accounts elon musk has been spending a lot of time at mar-a-lago, seems to have been camped out since president-elect trump won. what do you make of their post election alliance? >> it's like that movie with richard dreyfus and bill murray

i think called "where's bob?" he's not leaving. he came as a guest for the election and he's not leaving. >> you said you don't expect in alliance to end well. why not? >> i think the problem is we have two very narcissistic narcissistic people who like being dominant. >> what is in this for musk? obviously there's the attention which he seems to like, but there's also government contracts. his business relies a lot on the u.s. government. >> yeah, yeah. he already had those. i think it's 15 billion or some number and, of course, the government stepped in to save tesla when it was in trouble giving it a loan. he's long, longstanding and i remember when he got the first space contract. i called me because he was delighted he was sort of beating up on the old guard like the lockheeds and boeings and was thrilled to be innovative. that's the

exciting part of elon musk. the not so exciting part is this feels like cronie capitalism, right? he's hanging out at the manor with the boss and he'll get extras for it. i think a lot of people are worried, including people who compete with him. he's gotten this definitive advantage that seems a little strange. >> you bring up people who compete with him, i was thinking about jeff bezos and sam altman and people at openai which i guess they've had a falling out. >> yeah. very big. >> i don't know the current status of their relationship, but what does it mean for them? >> certain status is complicated, but it's not good. he's attacked and sued openai and made all kinds of accusations against sam altman. if you're openai, you've got to be worried. if you're reid hoffman, a big backer of kamala harris, you've got to be worried. you have to cozy up to the trump administration because this is an administration that operates in

a very transactional way. elon understands that. he also wants some influence for his various ideas about reforming the government which i think he'll run into a buzzsaw of more difficulty than in just bossing people around. he has a tendency to wander into a company and kick all the trash cans and scare people, right? that's his thing, but i don't think it's particularly helpful when it comes to government because you can't blow up rockets every day. >> musk obviously owns x. trump owns truth social. there's talk about some sort of merging. do you think that's real? >> well, it would be an interesting thing. first of all, truth social has no business to speak of whatsoever. i think my podcast makes seven to ten times more they do. they're not profitable, losing subscribers and same thing with twitter. the valuation on that has been brought down rather considerably, but he's using it as an influence and

propaganda vehicle, not a business. that's why he bought it. it hardly matters what he paid for it because he's so rich. i think merging would be interesting and taking it public and it being kind of a meme stock, you could take two really broken business models and put them together and still do well in the stock market. that would give a lot of money to donald trump. that's for sure. elon can monetize this thing. he has all these fans. you can see it. they're not businesses, though, just to be clear, anderson. they're terrible, terrible businesses. >> do you have any sense why elon musk has gone down like this conspiracy rabbit hole? a couple weeks ago he was posting things about qanon, promoting qanon? >> yeah, yeah. i don't know. i used to talk to him all the time until he blew up. that's an experience i share with many people like reid hoffman, sam altman. they were very close to him and then they weren't. silicon valley is littered with

people like that and then there's the enablers who stick with them because they're going to get while the getting's good. why not attach yourself to this guy who is so rich? i don't know. we had a very unusual interview. we had many, six or eight, but one of the last ones was during covid and i felt a shift in him that was rather significant. he was very obsessed with the deep state. california was keeping him from his thing. he had a very dramatic idea about his company which at one point he told me if tesla didn't survive, humanity was doomed and i was like okay, sure. i thought is he kidding? i didn't think he was kidding actually. he got very attached to that idea he was a savior. >> kara swisher, thank you so much. coming up, a verdict in a murder trial that gained national attention after two teenage girls in indiana were found dead in the woods in 2017. how this crucial video from a cell phone of one of the

victims led to today's conviction.

a fight over senate confirmation of appointees have become a test of loyalty to the president-elect. the president-elect demanded mitch mcconnell to allow recess appointments to bypass the senate confirmation process and install anyone in government he wants that might the be able to win support even in a republican-led senate. he tweeted any republican leader seeking reappointment in the

united states senate must allow recess appointments. sometimes the votes can take two years or more. this is what they did four years ago and we cannot let it happen again. we need positions filled immediately. joining me now somanu raju. can you explain what a reappointment is and if there's any precedent? >> there's really not a precedent especially if he tries to push through a whole slew of nominees and bypass the senate. advise and consent is constitutional authority given to the senators as they weigh the president's picks for his executive branch appointments and typically that process takes a lot of time. it requires vetting, background check, votes in the committee, on the senate floor, could take a few months in order to go through that process. what donald trump is suggesting here is simply get rid of that process altogether and allow for himself to use his own

authority to install those appointees without the senate having any votes at all. he needs to get the senate and house to agree to go on these extended recesses in order to do that. since 2007 the senate has not gone on those recesses because they tried to deny presidents the ability to essentially bypass them to, take away power from the senate. they don't want presidents to do that, but now trump is telling senate majority leader candidates saying you need to do this because i have to get my nominees in place very quickly. what we've seen from these candidates running to be one of the most powerful people in washington to be the next senate majority leader, they're saying they're fine with that, that they will defer power to the president-elect and allow him to do essentially what he wants in the confirmation process. so we'll see how this ultimately pans out and if there's pushback from other republican senators because they will be giving up a significant amount of authority simply to allow the president to put in place whoever he

wants. >> it's pretty incredible. there would be no embarrassing hearings essentially where a candidate would be questioned by democrats or republicans about their past positions, about their qualifications. there would be none of that. is that what you're saying? >> reporter: yeah. that's exactly what he's saying. it's not entirely clear if that's the extent to which he would go through this and that's exactly what he's saying in his tweet you read. it didn't get into the weeds of that, but possibly they could do that if he's talking about simply appointing someone through a recess appointment without going through that process, but that's what the vetting process is for. if they find red flags, that's when senators vote no and scuttle a nomination. also donald trump will have at least 52 seats in the senate, could have 53 depending on the pennsylvania senate race. he's probably already going to get most of his nominees confirmed except for maybe a few that may trip up in the confirmation process.

what he's saying is he doesn't want to go through any of that. let's just get his nominees in place and let the senate watch him do it. >> joining me now ashley etienne who worked for vice president harris and doug high who was at the republican national committee. doug, what do you make of this? what's a rational explanation, a real explanation for why the president-elect would preemptively demand the senate prepare to step aside and let him use these recess appointments? he says it's for speed. is that all there is about this? >> i think that's most of what it is for speed because as this process gets slowed down, we learn more about these candidates and quite often they don't get concerned because various problems come up. we've seen that in republican and democratic administration. i've worked in the united states senate and worked on hearings and confirmation processes and supreme court confirmations. it's a very long process, but also it depends who you

nominate. we know marco rubio now looks to be the pick for the secretary of state. yes, he would have a vetting process because he's a member of the senate. they typically go through. the last senate i think who didn't go through was senator john tower in the early 1990s, i believe. it's a very rare thing to do. donald trump wants as much power as he can get. that's not a surprise to anybody. what we've seen in recent years and this certainly predates donald trump is the house and senate both have willingly ceded power from the legislative branch to the executive branch. this has been generations of this happening. it's why the president, whether that's donald trump or joe biden or anybody else, has a lot more power today or come january 20th than they've had in the past. that just continues and continues. >> ashley, what do you make of

this idea? >> i actually think it's quite smart what president trump is suggesting because here's the real reality. no matter who becomes the senate leader, they'll have to strike a balance between, one, being loyal to donald trump and protecting interests of the institution and the majority. it's all about maintaining the majority. so how that leader does that is going to be interesting. when we think about nominees, here's how it could play out to your point. the benefit of the recess appointments is his nominees don't have to go through public scrutiny, media vetting, all those things, but it also protects some of those outliers in the senate that will be up for reelection, senator collins, murkowski and cassady, for example. it might work to their advantage to not have to take some of these tough votes on some of these sort of contemptible people donald

trump could put in these cabinet secretary positions from white nationalists to conspiracy theories. it protects them from having to take those tough votes and actually protects the senate and republican majority. i think it's a smart move. >> smart, but doesn't it mean things like ethical breaches? >> what does any of that matter post trump, a trump white house? none of that matters anymore. >> wow. >> especially not in the senate where the senate is going to be loyal to the president and put his interest before anyone else's and even that of the country and that has nothing to do with ethics. it has everything to do with what donald trump wants. >> harry, in terms of core trump supporters, what does the senate look like? >> senate republicans, the way you can see the core senate support for him is did they endorse him in the primary or not? 2016 there was one republican senator who endorsed donald trump, jeff sessions, who eventually donald trump got tired of and got rid of

compared to the 2024 primary. how many republicans endorsed trump during the primary season? north of 30. if last time around senate republicans tolerated donald trump, this time around they love him. they're going to be willing to let him do basically anything they want and what we're hearing tonight is exactly that. >> given the gop sweeping victories, are there many republicans that have to worry about aligning themself too closely? >> no way, man. make the comparison between the 2016 and 2024 primaries. in the 2016 primary season about 16% of republican senators were from states donald trump won. this time around it's 100%. there's no problem with republicans aligning themselves with trump. more than that, in terms of the general election, i think susan collins is the one republican from the state donald trump won in the general election. no. republican senators want to align themselves with trump. they love him and their voters love

him. >> republicans in the senate or, for that matter, the house, there's no incentive to push back on any incoming president on anything at this point. >> you're absolutely right. that's why democrats are so devastated and we're all mildly depressed, me included, because the win and victory tuesday was so sweeping that they sort of have carte blanche to do whatever they want to do now. it's kind of a depressing state for us and the country to be in, in fact. >> i appreciate you all being with us. still ahead, a long last conviction in the double murder of two teen girls in indiana, their bodies found after they vanished during a hike, how cell phone video recorded by one of the teens helped convict her killer.

more breaking news tonight, "the new york times" is reporting the president-elect is expected to name senator marco rubio of florida as his secretary of state, the times citing three people familiar with this thinking. the paper reported mr. trump could change his mind last minute but appeared to have settled on senator rubio. we'll have more on this the top of next hour. now to indiana and a verdict this afternoon in what became nationally known as the delphi murder cases, two teenage girls just 13 and 14-year-olds, were found dead in the woods in 2017 in their town. the case was cold for many years and then two years ago this man was arrested thanks in part to this cell phone video that was recorded by one of the teens who was murdered. he went on trial and

was found guilty today of two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder. randi kaye has the story. >> reporter: february 13th, 2017, two young girls go missing in delphi, indiana, 13-year-old abigail williams and 14-year-old liberty german. they disappeared after going for a hike. the next day a gruesome scene was discovered in the woods. >> this is considered a double homicide investigation. >> reporter: the girls' bodies were found partially covered by sticks less than a mile from the bridge where they were last seen. their throats had been cut. on libby's cell phone investigators discovered video of a man, a major clue to who killed the girls. the man became known as bridge guy because he was on the bridge at the time the girls disappeared. on the video the man's muffled voice says, guys, down the hill." a few days after the

murders delphi resident richard allen put himself at the scene telling police he'd been on the trail at the time and saw three girls. his name and his tip sat untouched for five years. in 2022 a volunteer receptionist came across allen's tip and noticed the time he said he was on the trail matched the time the girls were thought to have disappeared. that quick thinking receptionist alerted the detective in charge. >> we really thought like there wasn't going to be any answers. >> reporter: the carroll county sheriff later said despite the tip allen got lost in the cracks. turns out he'd never lost town. allen was working at a local cvs pharmacy. investigators matched an unused shell casing at the scene to a gun at allen's home and charged him with the girls' murders. >> today is not a day to celebrate, but the arrest of richard allen of delphi on two counts of murder is sure a major step in leading to the

conclusion of this long term and complex investigation. >> reporter: in court cnn affiliate wlfi reports a pathologist testified about the girls' wounds saying abby's throat wound was seven inches long and that it likely took five to ten minutes for libby to bleed to death according to affiliate wrtv. the girls had not been sexually assaulted the expert said. an indiana state police detective assigned to the case testified allen confessed to the murders more than 60 times while in prison awaiting trial. at one point he said a white van scared him off, so he didn't sexual assault the girls. a prison psychologist testified that in his cell allen had attempted to beat his head into the wall and was consuming his own feces. she noted he was suicidal. the defense zeroed in on that in an attempt to show allen confessed only because he was losing his grip on reality in isolation. in their closing argument

prosecutors noted that libby german had always said she wanted to help police solve crimes. in the end, with that cell phone video of bridge guy she helped solve her own. >> so awful. what comes next? >> reporter: well, anderson, richard allen will be sentenced december 20th and he's facing up to 130 years behind bars, but still even as that verdict was read our affiliate reports he sat there motionless, but in terms of the evidence, there was a lot of testimony about those 60 confessions that he gave while he was in prison awaiting trial and the jury got to hear some of those confessions and that was pretty powerful. there was also this one eyewitness who testified that she had seen a man on the trails, on the bridge and she said he was muddy and bloody. that is something that seemed to play well with the jury as well. >> it's incredible to me they had this account and it was a

receptionist who was going over this case who discovered it. >> reporter: yeah. it sat cold for five years and he had put himself in the middle of this case, as we said. he went to the police and he told them that he was on the trail. so they would look at anybody in any investigation anyone who comes forward they're going to look at. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. that's it for us. the news continues right here on cnn.