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    • Richard Allen’s Delphi murder trial heads to jury deliberations
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    Richard Allen’s Delphi murder trial heads to jury deliberations

    Harry Posted on

    DELPHI, Ind. The fate of Richard Allen It is now in the hands of five men and seven women and began negotiations early Thursday afternoon after hearing final arguments from both sides.

    Jurors selected from Fort Wayne, 100 miles away, must decide whether they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the 52-year-old Delphi man was kidnapped and killed alone. Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German On February 13, 2017. Prosecutors claimed He said Allen followed the girls across the Monon High Bridge, threatened them with a gun and took them into the nearby woods, where he killed them.

    Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLelandIn his closing statement Thursday morning, he said that to find out who killed Abby and Libby, investigators need to find out the identity of the man named “Bridge Guy.” seen in that famous video That afternoon I was following the boys on the high bridge.

    The burden of justice: Delphi murder trial jurors will face unimaginable pressures and life-changing decisions

    “The state has shown that Richard Allen is the Bridge Guy,” McLeland told jurors, later adding: “He’s been living in the city for five years. He’s been living among us for five years.”

    Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022, more than five years after the girls’ deaths. Prosecutors claimed a tour not wasted The gun found among the girls’ bodies was thrown into Allen’s gun. But its defense lawyers objected that he was an innocent and mentally fragile man, drifting into psychosis and make false confessions – after months of isolation in a prison cell.

    “No one identified Richard Allen as the man on the bridge” defense attorney Bradley Rozzi he told jurors during his closing argument. “There is not a single piece of digital data linking Richard Allen to that crime scene or to the girls.”

    The case was presented to the jury at around 13.30. Jurors deliberated for two hours before calling the case a day and will continue deliberations Friday morning.

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    A queue formed outside the courthouse to hear the verdict in Richard Allen’s murder case

    Jurors will continue deliberations on Friday, November 7

    In his closing statement, McLeland said the state’s evidence points to one person: Richard Allen.

    Using his gun, Allen forced 13-year-old Abby and 14-year-old Libby down the hill from the Monon High Bridge trail into the woods, where he killed them by slitting their throats. “He left behind his calling card, which had a bullet from his gun,” McLeland told jurors.

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    Richard Allen trial continues with jury deliberations at Delphi

    Closing arguments took place Thursday, after which the jury began deliberating on the four charges against Richard Allen.

    he told many confessions Allen gave to prison authorities, his therapist And in phone calls to his wife Kathy Allen and mother Janis Allen while awaiting trial. Westville Prison. He replayed recordings of some of those phone calls, repeatedly reminding jurors that Allen confessed to the crimes “of his own free will.”

    McLeland pointed out the only physical evidence linking Allen to the crime scene: unspent tour It was found six inches from Abby’s foot. he said Indiana State Police firearms examiner His analysis concluded that the bullet was chambered in Allen’s Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40-caliber pistol, something he was never wrong about during his 17-year career.

    McLeland talked about two police interrogations that led to Allen’s arrest. On October 13, 2022Allen said he admitted to wearing clothes similar to Bridge Guy’s. On October 26, 2022McLeland told jurors that Allen had no explanation for how the bullet from his gun ended up at the scene. And Allen got more and more angry Indiana State Police Lt. Jerry Holeman she continued to confront him about it.

    If jurors were still unconvinced, McLeland urged them to return. One of Allen’s own confessions. While in Westville, Allen met with his therapist, Dr. He told Monica Wala that he forced the girls to go to the forest and planned to rape them, but a minibus driving a private car nearby scared him. According to Wala’s notes from that session.

    That vehicle according to the previous statementIt belonged to Brad Weber, who drove a white van and lived near the trail. Weber told jurors that he was coming home from work around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017; This was a few minutes after the girls were forced off the road and into the woods.

    That van was a detail “only the killer would know,” McLeland told jurors.

    State rests: Prosecutors rested their case in the Delphi murder case, but is that enough to convict Richard Allen?

    Moreover, McLeland said, an Indiana State Police officer familiar with Allen’s voice after spending countless hours listening to all 700 prison calls to Allen’s family identified his voice as belonging to the Bridge Guy.

    In the infamous video Libby shot minutes before she and Abby disappeared, Bridge Guy told the girls, “Go down the hill.”

    That man’s voice ISP veteran soldier Brian Harshman he told jurors belonged to Allensaid McLeland.

    “All the pieces are clear now,” McLeland said. “All the pieces have been put together.”

    In his final remarks to jurors, McLeland returned to Allen’s own words.

    “Richard Allen told many things to many different people,” he said, adding that he made detailed confessions because he trusted his therapist, Wala. “Words matter.”

    McLeland left jurors paying tribute to Libby German, who recorded the 43-second video that would later become key evidence in the inquest into her death. He reminded the jury members Becky PattyLibby’s grandmother said the 14-year-old’s goal was to help police solve crimes.

    “He did it,” McLeland said.

    The full Delphi murders statement: Who testified at Richard Allen’s trial for the Delphi murders? What did they say?

    Rozzi, one of Allen’s defense attorneys, urged jurors to accept the skepticism of the years-long investigation into Abby and Libby’s murders and to acknowledge the horrific prison conditions that Allen — who remains innocent until proven guilty — had to endure.

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

    During his closing argument, Rozzi repeatedly returned to what he saw as a critical gap in the defense’s version of the state’s version of what happened to the teens after they disappeared. Digital forensics expert testified earlier this week Someone plugged a headphone jack into Libby’s phone at 5:45 p.m., and about five hours later at 10:32 p.m., someone removed it. Incoming testimony Stacy Eldridge It casts doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the girls were killed that afternoon and their bodies left in the woods, untouched for hours until first responders found them the next day.

    “This phone has no personality, it has no emotions, it has no ideas. It just has data,” Rozzi said. “Someone’s obsessed with this.”

    Rozzi told jurors the state had more than seven years to investigate what happened during those five hours. But at the end of the day, investigators and prosecutors argued, jurors chose to ignore critical information that called into question their narratives.

    For jurors to accept the state’s timeline of events — the girls were abducted shortly after 2 p.m., killed less than a half-hour later, undressed and, in Abby’s case, clothes put on — they would have to believe that a six-footer occurred. Rozzi told jurors that a 12-inch man did it all by himself, reminding investigators that investigators previously believed more than one person was involved.

    Rozzi pointed out what he saw as grave errors in a botched investigation. Police I lost hours and hours of video It consists of interviews with witnesses. Researchers waited more than seven years to conduct DNA testing in a piece of hair I found it in Abby’s possession and was trying to do something BMV search for Ford Focus models in Carroll County. Prosecutors alleged Allen drove his black Ford Focus onto the footpath. surveillance footage from the nearby Hoosier Harvestore.

    Defensive rests: Richard Allen and his defense attorneys rested their case. Have they done enough?

    Rozzi cast doubt on the accounts of eyewitnesses who gave different descriptions of Bridge Guy, none of which matched Allen. Betsy Blairnoted: told the man He saw himself as young and childish. Allen was in his 40s when the girls were killed. He cited the statements of two witnesses who were on the trail around the time the girls were to be forcibly taken into the nearby forest. David McCain and Shelby Hicks They both testified They heard no screams.

    “They didn’t see anything, they didn’t hear anything,” Rozzi said, urging jurors to “use your common sense.”

    Rozzi also questioned the Indiana State Police firearms investigator’s findings regarding the unspent bullet. He called it a “magic bullet” that was “nothing short of a tragic bullet.”

    Rozzi argued that Allen’s actions shortly after the girls’ murders and in the days leading up to his arrest did not create guilt. Allen reported himself to the police He said he was on leave on February 16, 2017. Rozzi said that he willingly went to the police station for questioning on October 13, 2022 and October 26, 2022 and claimed his innocence in both cases.

    Rozzi acknowledged that Allen became angry during the second interrogation, but said: “Your reaction would be the same if someone was accused of killing two girls.”

    Rozzi then addressed the conditions of Allen’s incarceration, which drove the already troubled man into a state of psychosis. Allen has history of depression and anxietyHe was taken to Westville in November 2022 shortly after his arrest.

    “Mr. Allen was a fragile egg when he landed on that doorstep,” Rozzi said, adding that he was housed alongside some of the state’s most heinous criminals and treated the same way.

    Allen lived in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell with cinder block walls and little human contact, Rozzi said. He spent his outdoor recreation time in another walled area with a mesh ceiling.

    “When the dust settled, he was there for 13 months,” Rozzi said. “How long can one person last?”

    Rozzi also tried to cast doubt Wala’s statementAllen’s therapist in Westville, He was faking psychosis. He reminded jurors that jail staff injected Allen with antipsychotic medication.

    “Antipsychotic means he’s psychotic,” Rozzi said.

    Rozzi concluded his closing statement by showing jurors photographs of medieval torture instruments used during interrogation. He argued that torture in modern times took the form of solitary confinement.

    “When is anyone going to say something is wrong here? Where’s the moral compass?” he asked the jurors. “You are the moral compass.”

    He then showed them several photos of Allen in his cell. One of them showed her lying naked next to her bunk bed, her arm wrapped around the toilet bowl.

    “This is the power of your government,” he told jurors. “No man or woman should be treated this way.”

    IndyStars reporter Jordan Smith, John Tufts and content team manager Jennifer Porter Tilley contributed to this story.

    Harry
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