Trial of Richard Allen in Delphi, Indiana murders begins

DELPHI, Indiana –

A murder trial in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls opened Friday in the small Indiana town where all the teens and the man accused of killing them lived.

Richard Allen, 52, is charged with the murder of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German. Their deaths had gone unsolved for more than five years when Allen, then a pharmacy worker, was arrested in the case that attracted the attention of true crime fans.

Allen had always been a resident of Delphi, living and working in the northwest Indiana community of about 3,000 people. He faces two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping. If convicted, Allen faces up to 130 years in prison.

Nearly two years after his October 2022 arrest, opening statements are expected to begin before a special judge at the Carroll County Courthouse, just blocks from the pharmacy where Allen had worked. A panel of jurors was brought in from nearly 100 miles away. They will be sequestered throughout what is expected to be a month-long trial, banned from watching the news and allowed limited use of their cell phones to call loved ones, under the supervision of bailiffs.

The judge also banned anyone from appearing in the courtroom while the trial is underway.

Prosecutors said during jury selection this week in Fort Wayne that they plan to call about 50 witnesses. Allen’s defense attorneys expect to call about 120 people. The 12 jurors and four alternates will receive preliminary instructions Friday morning before hearing opening statements.

The case has experienced repeated delays, some related to a leak of evidence, the removal of Allen’s public defenders and their subsequent reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court. This is also the subject of a gag order.

The teens, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on Feb. 14, 2017, in a rugged, wooded area about a quarter mile from the Monon High Bridge Trail. The girls went missing the day before while hiking this trail just outside their hometown. Days later, police released files found on Libby’s cellphone that they said captured the killer’s image and voice — two grainy photos and audio of a man saying “down the hill “.

Investigators also released a sketch of a suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019. They also released a brief video showing a suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge, known as the Monon High Bridge. After several years went by without a suspect identified, investigators said they went back and looked at “previous tips.”

Investigators found Allen was interviewed in 2017. He told an officer he was walking on the trail the day Abby and Libby disappeared and saw three “women” on a bridge called Freedom Bridge , but did not speak to them, according to an affidavit.

Allen told the officer that as he walked from that bridge to the Monon High Bridge, he did not see anyone but was distracted, “looking at a ticker tape on his phone as he walked.”

Police interviewed Allen again on October 13, 2022, when he reported seeing three “young girls” while on his walk in 2017. Investigators searched Allen’s home and seized a .40 caliber pistol. Prosecutors said tests determined that an unexpended bullet found between Abby and Libby’s bodies “passed through” Allen’s gun.

According to the affidavit, Allen said he had never been to the scene and “had no explanation as to why a bullet through his firearm would be in that location.”

Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, who is now overseeing the Carroll County trial, ruled that prosecutors can introduce evidence of dozens of incriminating statements Allen allegedly made during conversations with officers correctional officers, inmates, law enforcement and relatives. That evidence includes a recording of a phone call between Allen and his wife in which, prosecutors say, he confessed to the murders.

Allen’s defense attorneys sought to argue that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Norse religion and a white nationalist group known as the Odinists.

Prosecutors have not revealed how the teens were killed. But a court filing by Allen’s lawyers in support of their ritual sacrifice theory says their throats had been slit.