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CARROLL COUNTY, Ind.– The owner of the land where two Delphi girls were found murdered in February was sentenced to almost four years in prison on illegal driving charges.

Ron Logan, 77, pleaded guilty to being a habitual traffic violator and violating probation by getting behind the wheel of his truck after a judge told him not to drive following his most recent 2014 drunk driving arrest.

“Maybe in the future no one else will be murdered in my backyard,” Logan told Carroll Superior Judge Kurtis Fouts, apparently to the surprise of his own attorney, when asked if he wished to speak up for himself.

Logan admitted violating his probation and the Court’s no-driving order with less than a month to go when he visited a county waste transfer station the day Libby German and Abby Williams were murdered, their bodies found on his property the next day, and two weeks later when he was spotted drinking a beer at a Tippecanoe County pizza restaurant.

The lifelong Carroll County resident is a not suspect in the deaths.

His trip to the dump occurred hours before the girls were dropped off for an afternoon hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail east of Delphi.

“Everybody’s thinking he’s the guy. He doesn’t even fit the description at all,” said a neighbor named Angie who fought back tears after the sentencing. “People on social media cannot understand even though law enforcement has said over and over that he is not a suspect, not connected to the murders, and why he’s in jail but they don’t accept that. They keep saying he’s in jail because of that.”

Police have released a photograph, snapped by Libby on her cellphone, of a man in blue jeans approaching them on the trail. Investigators are awaiting DNA test lab results being conducted by the FBI to conclusively link that suspect to the murders.

The presence of FBI agents and out-of-town visiting officers assigned to the case has been downsized at the investigation command center in downtown Delphi.

Logan cooperated with detectives and reporters in the days after the bodies were found on his land and that notoriety may have played a role in community awareness of his driving in violation of the court’s orders.

“Probably,” said the neighbor, “I mean, all eyes are on him right now because he’s the property owner.

“I think he was very stressed over that,” she said, “and upset and he probably did need a beer. I would.”

Between 2010 and 2014, Logan was arrested for drunk driving four times, resulting in three convictions.

Judge Fouts noted previous leniency in sentencing Logan to probation and other alternative terms.

“I know he’s had chances before,” said Angie, “but I think with support we could have made sure that he wasn’t going to have a vehicle, we could have made sure that he needed to go where he needed to go.”

Logan’s sentence includes 22 months to serve on his original probation violation plus another two years after his guilty pleas as a habitual traffic violator, though Judge Fouts indicated he is free to appeal the consecutive sentences.

“You’re a danger to this community,” said the judge.

Logan received 31 days credit for the time he served without bond in the Carroll County Jail since his arrest.