John Jefferson
Insets top to bottom: Liberty “Libby” German and Abigail “Abby” Williams (FBI). Inset right: Richard Allen (Indiana State Police). Background: The area where the bodies of German and Williams were discovered (WXIN).
After less than four days of deliberation, a jury in Indiana has convicted accused Delphi murderer Richard Allen on all charges in the horrific slayings of two teen girls in Indiana. The guilty verdict was announced Monday after 17 days of testimony in one of the most high-profile — and controversial — murder trials in the history of the state.
Authorities accused the 52-year-old Allen of killing Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off the Delphi Historic Trails system in 2017. Jurors found Allen guilty on two counts of murder and two additional counts of felony murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the girls’ deaths.
Williams and German vanished while walking the Moon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what was once the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle, and their deaths were determined to be homicides.
Prosecutors went into the case without any direct physical evidence implicating Allen — no DNA, fingerprints, or other forensic evidence linking Allen to the killings.
Additionally, since his initial arrest, the case had been plagued with missteps and animus from all sides.
For example, prosecutors accidentally lost 70 days worth of police interviews. The state provided Allen’s attorneys with a previously unseen report detailing “how all videos between April 28, 2017 and June 30, 2017” had been lost. Those lost tapes came in addition to two recorded interviews from February 2017 with men that the defense has indicated were “key suspects” in the girls’ murders. Prosecutors maintained the tapes were accidentally erased.
Allen’s attorneys were admonished for accidentally leaking sealed evidence and were even forced off the case by the presiding judge before ultimately being reinstated.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Allen confessed to the murders on multiple occasions and is the “Bridge Guy” captured on cellphone video walking behind the two victims shortly before their deaths. Jurors even heard a recorded phone conversation between Allen and his wife in which he said, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby,” according to The Associated Press.
“The State has shown that Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors in his closing argument, per the Indianapolis Star, adding, “Five years, he lives in the city. Five years, he lives amongst us.”
Defense attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin argued that prosecutors tried retrofit evidence to make Allen look guilty because authorities were under immense pressure to solve the horrific case. They also brought in expert witnesses who testified that Allen’s confessions were false and caused by months of living in solitary confinement where he was incessantly harassed.
Allen’s defense attorneys had previously put forth a theory that the victims were killed in a ritualistic sacrifice by members of a white nationalist “Odinism” cult. However, Judge Francis C. Gull ruled that the defense could not put forth that theory at trial due to a lack of supporting admissible evidence.
Allen will appear before Gull on Dec. 20, 2024, for his sentencing hearing and faces a maximum sentence of 130 years in a state prison.
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