Richard Allen was convicted of the murders of Libby German and Abby Williams

by Junna Base November 11, 2024

DELPHI, Ind. – A jury of five men and seven women found Richard Allen guilty Monday on all four counts in connection with the deaths of Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German.

The jury convicted the 52-year-old Delphi man of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree murder in the girls’ abduction. The long-awaited decision in one of Indiana’s most high-profile murder cases comes after more than seven years of investigation, nearly three weeks of testimony and 18 hours of deliberations.

Abby, 13, and her best friend, Libby, 14, went for a hike on the Monon High Bridge Trail on the afternoon of February 13, 2017. Prosecutors alleged that Allen tailed the girls on High Bridge, forcing them to walk down a hill and into a nearby forest, where he killed them by slitting their throats.

The verdict is a confirmation of the years-long and sometimes criticized investigation by law enforcement authorities into the girls’ deaths. While it might bring some closure to their families, it’s unlikely the jury’s decision will mean the end of the case. Allen will certainly appeal.

The case against Allen relied largely on an unspent cartridge found among the girls’ bodies, which investigators claimed passed through Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226 .40 caliber, and the dozens of confessions , which Allen made while he was in prison awaiting trial.

In a confession to Dr. Monica Wala, his therapist at Westville Correctional Facility, told Allen that he forced the girls into the woods and planned to rape them, but was startled by a van driving on a private drive nearby and forced them , to say goodbye According to Wala’s notes, he caught Deer Creek and killed her. That vehicle belonged to Brad Weber, who testified that he drove to his home near the trail around 2:30 p.m., minutes after the girls were believed to have been abducted.

That van, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said in his closing argument Thursday, was a detail “only the killer would know.”

Another key piece of evidence prosecutors have focused on is the 43-second video Libby recorded shortly after she and Abby disappeared from the trail. The video showed a man named “Bridge Guy” chasing Abby as she crossed the high bridge. Towards the end of the video, the man asked the girls to “go down the hill.”

“The state has shown that Richard Allen is a bridge guy,” McLeland told jurors, citing the testimony of Indiana State Police Detective Brian Harshman, who said he became familiar with Allen’s voice after hearing 700 overheard calls he made in prison. “Bridge Guy’s voice is Allen’s voice,” Harshman told jurors.

Defense attorneys have countered that Allen was an innocent and mentally fragile man whose months of isolation in Westville drove him into psychosis and false confessions. In his closing argument, Bradley Rozzi urged the jury to recognize the dubiousness of the years-long investigation into the girls’ deaths.

“You should question the credibility of this investigation because of the things they didn’t tell you,” Rozzi told jurors.

Rozzi repeatedly pointed to what the defense saw as a crucial flaw in the state’s account of events: a gaping five-hour hole in which someone had plugged a headphone jack into Libby’s phone. The testimony from the defense’s digital forensics expert casts doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the girls were killed earlier in the afternoon and their bodies were left untouched in the woods for hours until first responders found them the next day.

Defense attorneys also called several experts to refute Wala’s testimony that Allen was faking psychosis. A neuropsychologist told jurors that months of solitary confinement worsened Allen’s depression and dependent personality disorder and drove him into psychosis. A psychiatrist and a solitary confinement expert told jurors that Allen’s behavior and mental state in Westville were “fully consistent with the effects of prolonged isolation.”

“When is someone going to say something is wrong here? “Where is the moral compass?” Rozzi told the jury in his closing argument. “You are the moral compass.”

Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at [email protected].

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