Suspected killer Richard Allen has been found guilty on all four counts in the 2017 murders of Delphi teens Liberty German and Abigail Williams.
Allen was charged on two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder, which is murder committed in the act of another crime in this instance kidnapping.
Jurors in Carroll County Courthouse deliberated for about 18 hours – across four days – before reaching a unanimous verdict of guilt on Monday.
Allen remained motionless and at one point mouthed to wife Kathy who was present in the courtroom, ‘are you okay?’
The verdict marks the culmination of a high-profile three-week trial and an Indiana community’s seven-year-long wait for justice.
Fifty-two-year-old Allen has spent the past two years in solitary confinement in Westville Correctional Facility and Cass County Jail where he has been held under a designation of, ‘safe keeper,’ while awaiting trial.
Now he faces a maximum possible sentence of 130 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 20.
Richard Allen, 52, faces murder charges for the 2017 deaths of teenage bestfriends Libby and Abby
Allen is charged with killing best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, after they went on a hike outside their hometown of Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017
Allen’s wife Kathy, was in court to hear the sensational end to the highly anticipated trial.
She heard closing arguments to conclude the 17 days she was present at the trial, along with jurors who heard from 60 witnesses and were presented with more than 300 exhibits.
Kathy sat in the second row of the public gallery to the right of the court. The families of the victims sat in the second and third rows across the aisle on the left.
Jurors heard closing statements last Thursday before being sent out to deliberate at 1:25pm.
Standing to address the court shortly after 9am Thursday morning, prosecutor Nick McLeland described February 13, 2017, as, ‘a day this community will never forget.’
‘Abigail Williams and Liberty German went to the trails for a walk and never returned. The day that both of them were murdered by Richard Allen.’
Law enforcement and locals who joined in the first frantic search for the girls on February 13 and into the early hours of the morning, weren’t under the assumption they’d stumble into a horrific crime scene.
‘They weren’t looking for two bodies, they were looking for two girls,’ he said, ‘Nobody thought anything bad had happened to Abby and Libby. That doesn’t happen round here.’
At the beginning of the trial on October 18, McLeland told jurors the case was about Bridge Guy, a bullet and the brutal murders of two young girls.
He reiterated, ‘We told you we would give you evidence to convict Richard Allen, and we have done just that.’
The prosecutor reminded them that Allen had repeatedly damned himself through his own words by placing himself on the bridge at the time of the girls’ abductions and through his multiple prison confessions.
It was Allen who put himself on the trail between 1.30 and 3.30pm, Allen who told investigators he had gone out onto Monon High Bridge, Allen who described the outfit he wore and Allen who made a string of prison confessions that included details that only the killer could have known.
The two best friends were last seen alive going on their fateful hike to Monon High Bridge in February 2017
The two girls set off on a trail hike on the fateful day of February 13, 2017. They followed the Monon High Bridge trail (pictured) making the perilous journey across the disused railway bridge that gave it its name
Kathy, accused murderer Richard Allen’s wife, sat in the second row of the public gallery to the right of the court to hear the end of the trial
McLeland once again showed the video recorded by Libby at 2.13pm that showed ‘the moment the girls were kidnapped.’
The shaky footage was played for the court and showed Abby making her way across the bridge as the bundled-up figure of a man walked with purpose behind her.
‘Guys, down the hill,’ echoed through the silent room along with a startled chirp from one of the girls and the horrified words, ‘That be a gun.’
McLeland described the feeling of this scene to the jury: ‘You can hear the fear in their voice. You can see the fear in Abby’s face.’
He reminded the jurors of the eyewitnesses who were adamant that the person they saw that day was Bridge Guy. He reminded them of the digital evidence gleaned from Libby’s phone which, he said, showed it stopped moving at 2.32pm and never moved again.
McLeland recalled volunteer Kathy Shank’s chance find of the lead sheet in 2022 – something that hadn’t been followed up at the time – recording a man who self-reported being on the trails between 1.30 and 3.30pm.
He told them investigators knew ‘all indications pointed to that man being Bridge Guy,’ and that man was Allen.
Indeed, when officers searched his home on October 26, 2022, McLeland said they found ‘a Bridge Guy starter kit,’ – a Carhartt jacket, a Sig Sauer P226 and an unspent 40 caliber Smith and Weston cartridge held in a hope box in Allen’s bedroom.
They also seized numerous electronic devices but the only one that was missing was the phone Allen used in 2017 at the time of the murders – a device he had never let law enforcement inspect.
Allen’s defense said the conditions he was held in caused an already ‘fragile egg’ to become mentally ill – to the point of developing Major Depressive Disorder with Psychosis
The state and Allen’s defense presented their closing arguments on Thursday morning, both focusing on the timeline and physical evidence at the scene
The prosecutor told jurors that Allen was ‘familiar with the area.’ He had frequently visited the Monon High Bridge alone and with his family.
‘See how the pieces are starting to fall into place?’ he urged.
McLeland reminded them that the state presented evidence that the cartridge found between the girls’ bodies had ‘been cycled through Richard Allen’s gun.’
‘That could have ended the case,’ he asserted. ‘But then he starts to confess.’
During the 13 months Allen was held in solitary confinement – or one-man cell as the state referred to it – he made multiple confessions both in phone calls to his mother Janice and wife Kathy and in person to the corrections officers tasked with watching over him on suicide watch, his prison therapist Dr Monica Wala and his prison psychiatrist Dr John Martin.
McLeland played one of Allen’s calls from April 3 he made to his wife where he said, ‘I just wanted to apologize. I did it. You know I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.’
The call was, McLeland said, ‘unprovoked, unpressured’ and ‘made of his own volition.’
Later that month, Allen confessed on April 26 that he had stolen a box cutter that he used to kill the girls and then threw in the trash at the CVS where he worked.
He made his most detailed confession yet to Dr Wala when he told her he had intended to rape the girls but had seen a van, got scared and killed them instead.
Quoting Allen’s own words, the prosecutor said: ‘He continued living his life after time had passed because he hadn’t been caught.’
The now clean-shaven accused double-murderer is seen sitting alongside defense attorney Andrew Baldwin in a court sketch from Saturday November 2
Inside and outside the courtroom the atmosphere has been one of intense emotion, with dozens lining up in hopes of sitting in on the trial daily. Pictured: Spectators lining up outside Carroll County Court on October 18
Taking the jurors back to February 13, 2017, McLeland said: ‘That day started out like any other day. The day that Bridge Guy stole the youth and the life away from Liberty and Abigail. The state has shown you Richard Allen is Bridge Guy.
‘For five years he has lived amongst us. He didn’t realize he left behind a cartridge from his gun, and he also left behind Liberty’s cell phone.’
Allen County Special Judge Frances Gull is presiding over the case
But according to Bradley Rozzi who delivered the defense’s passionate closing statements the state had proved nothing.
He described their timeline as ‘broken,’ their ballistics evidence as ‘bungled’ and the confessions as ‘false’ and ‘cherry-picked’ to present only a fraction of a far more complicated, troubling truth.
The one thing that ‘speaks the truth’ he insisted was something the state hadn’t told jurors about at all – raw data gleaned from Libby’s cellphone which showed that at 5.45pm on February 13, 2017, somebody had plugged headphones into the phone and, at 10.32pm, someone had removed them.
The state sought to dismiss this as a technical glitch caused by dirt or water damage.
Rozzi reminded jurors that there was no DNA evidence, no trace evidence, no clothing and no digital data or communications that connected Allen to the crime scene or either of the girls.
Rozzi told them, ‘The magic bullet is nothing more than a tragic bullet. It is the catalyst that landed Rick in that prison.’ The prison in question was Westville Correctional Facility in Westville some 76 miles outside Delphi.
In their case, the defense has made much of the conditions in which Allen was held stating they caused an already ‘fragile egg’ to become seriously mentally ill and develop Major Depressive Disorder with Psychosis.
The confessions were nothing but the product of his psychotic mind and should be dismissed entirely and given no weight, they insisted.
The conditions in which he was held were tantamount to torture. A picture of a medieval rack popped up on the large screen behind Rozzi, followed by a picture of a thumbscrew.
Rozzi said these were: ‘Medieval devices to interrogate people. As a society, we’ve evolved…to a more subtle form called solitary confinement. Whether intentional, reckless or negligent somebody should have spoken out. Where was the moral compass? You are the moral compass.’
Becky Patty, the grandmother of Libby, said she had always wanted to grow up to help solve police cases
Jurors heard closing statements Thursday before being sent out to deliberate at 1.25pm
Officers found ‘a Bridge Guy starter kit’ in Allen’s home during a search on October 26, 2022 -including apparel and ammunition
Hammering his point home, Rozzi displayed pictures of Allen in open court, taken from prison video that has, to this point, been shielded from public view and seen only by the jury.
In one photo he lies naked, curled up in the fetal position on the floor. In one he is naked against a wall, and in another, he wears a suicide smock with a white spit hood over his head.
‘That’s the power of your state,’ he said, pointing to the screen behind him. A picture of a python crushing its prey followed next. ‘Now is the time to step up and recognize this is not how we function.
‘Rendering a verdict of guilt would be endorsing this process and you should not do that. We’re asking you to set Richard Allen free.’
But standing to give the brief rebuttal to which the state is entitled, McLeland sought to refocus jurors’ minds.
‘There are two victims in this case. Liberty and Abigail. But they’re more than victims they’re heroes. Libby for making the video. Abby for hiding the phone and both of them for camouflaging the bullet.’
Finishing his brief response, he reminded them of the testimony of Libby’s grandmother Becky Patty delivered on the first day of evidence.
‘Libby told her, ‘Someday I’m going to grow up and help police solve crimes’ that’s exactly what she did, and she brought Abby along with her.’
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