Verdict in Delphi murder trial: Richard Allen found guilty on all charges

CNN
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According to CNN affiliate WTHR, Richard Allen was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated murder in the high-profile Delphi murder trial.

Prosecutors say Allen killed 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German in 2017, slitting their throats and leaving their bodies near a trail in Delphi, Indiana. The case remained unsolved for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.

Richard Allen sat emotionless as the guilty verdict was announced, WTHR reported. His sentencing date is scheduled for December 20th.

The jury spent about 19 hours deliberating before reaching a verdict.

Allen could be sentenced to up to 130 years in prison, The Associated Press reported.

The 12-member jury, sequestered during the trial, began deliberating Thursday afternoon after 17 days of testimony. The judge ordered them to deliberate Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. until they reached a verdict.

Allen County Superior Court Judge Frances Gull gave her final instructions to jurors Thursday morning, telling them to “consider the facts” before Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland made closing arguments and walked the jury through the during Evidence and testimony presented during the trial, CNN affiliate WTHR reported.

“I believe the evidence is compelling that Richard Allen is ‘Bridge Guy’ and that he killed Abby and Libby,” McLeland told the jury, referring to a video taken from Libby’s phone that shows a man along the Monon High Bridge Trail. Delphi law enforcement has long believed that the “Bridge Guy” shown in the video is the prime suspect in the case.

According to WTHR, McLeland showed jurors graphic photos of the girls’ bodies, the “Bridge Guy” video that he said captured the final moments of the girls’ lives, and a recording of Allen allegedly telling his wife during a phone call from prison confessed a confession.

“I did it,” Allen was heard telling his wife. “I killed Abby and Libby.”

Defense attorney Brad Rozzi said in his closing argument that a disrupted schedule, false confessions and a lack of DNA or weapons evidence should lead to acquittal.

“The defense trusts that what you have heard over the last few weeks is more important than what you are hearing today,” Rozzi told jurors Thursday, according to WTHR.

The defense further argued that there was no physical evidence linking Allen to the murders and said that the confessions he made in the past were “false” and resulted from him being in solitary confinement for months while his mental health was deteriorating.

The Delphi murder case dates back to February 13, 2017, when Abby and Libby went for a hike on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi. The two girls were reported missing after they failed to meet Libby’s father that afternoon. The next day their bodies were found, both dead from cuts to their throats and partially covered with sticks.

The case gained public attention, among other things, through the video and audio recording of a suspect taken from Libby’s smartphone. The video shows a man walking across the bridge with his hands in his pockets, and in the audio the muffled voice of a man can be heard saying, “Guys, down the hill.” Although police have released the audio recording and a still image of the Distributing videos just days after the murders and identifying the “Bridge Guy” as their prime suspect, the case remained dormant for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.

Allen had apparently escaped police attention, remaining in the small town of Delphi and working at a local CVS pharmacy until an employee digitizing tips related to the investigation noticed he had been at the crime scene in September 2022. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police that he had been on the trail during the period when the girls were believed to have been killed.

Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett said Allen “got lost in the cracks” despite the tip, according to CNN affiliate WLFI. About a month after the tip was rediscovered, Allen was arrested after police matched an unused cartridge found among the girls’ bodies to a handgun recovered during a police search of his home.

After Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022, he was charged five days later with two counts of murder for kidnapping or attempted kidnapping. Prosecutors later added two more counts of murder to the charges.

Allen’s confessions – and his sanity when he made them – were highlighted

During the trial, prosecutors highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions he made while incarcerated: According to prosecutors, he confessed to the crime more than 60 times, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the Wardens and other prison employees and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions to the jury.

Monica Wala, the former chief psychologist at the Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified that he initially told her he was innocent, but in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch, he began to confess the crimes.

Wala testified that Allen told her, “I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry,” CNN affiliate WTHR said. He said he originally intended to sexually assault the victims but ran away when he saw a van nearby and slit the girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.

The defense has sought to portray Allen as a mentally ill man whose fragile mental state was exacerbated by months in solitary confinement, including during the time he confessed to the crimes. While in prison, he was placed on suicide watch twice, exhibited bizarre behaviors such as eating his own feces and hitting his head, and was once diagnosed with a “brief psychotic disorder,” according to Wala’s statement.

As a defense witness, Deanna Dwenger, a clinical psychologist who worked for the Indiana Department of Corrections Behavioral Health, testified that Allen was diagnosed with a serious mental illness in April 2023 and a team of mental health professionals concluded is that he has a “severe disability”. according to CNN affiliate WRTV.

The defense had originally hoped to introduce an “Odinism” defense: a theory that followers of Odinism, a Norse pagan religion recently taken over by white supremacists, committed the murders. But Judge Gull repeatedly rejected requests to introduce this theory.

Prosecutors are focusing on audio recordings and the bullet found at the crime scene

Despite Allen’s confessions, there is very little physical evidence linking him to the case: A DNA expert who testified for the state found no DNA from Allen at the crime scene, and on items recovered from his home, No DNA from Libby or Abby was found.

Prosecutors drew attention to the unspent .40-caliber cartridge found in the girls’ bodies, which a prosecution expert said matched Allen’s handgun. According to WRTV, the defense expressed doubts about the bullet evidence, questioning why more pictures weren’t taken of the cartridge and suspecting the bullet could have come from a police officer’s gun.

Prosecutors have also tried to link Allen to the video and audio recording of the “Bridge Guy” recorded on Libby’s cellphone. Indiana State Police Capt. Brian Harshman, who said he listened to more than 700 of Allen’s prison calls, testified for the prosecution, according to WRTV: “The voice of ‘Bridge Guy’ is the voice of Richard Allen.”

“Richard Allen is ‘Bridge Guy,'” McLeland told jurors. “He kidnapped her and later murdered her.”

In response, Rozzi said Allen had not been positively identified by witnesses as the man who was on the trail or bridge when the teens went missing. He also pointed out that Allen continued to live in Delphi for more than five years after the girls were murdered.

“He had every chance to run, but he didn’t because he didn’t,” Rozzi told jurors.