Jurors heard confessions delphi murder During closing arguments on Thursday, the prosecution doubted Richard Allen made a last-ditch effort to convince him that he was the “Bridge man” who allegedly killed two teenage girls in 2017.

After three weeks of testimony in the long-awaited double murder trial, Allen’s fate is now in the hands of the jury. He could face up to 130 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Allen, 52, faces two additional murder charges and two additional murder charges for kidnapping or attempted kidnapping in the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German, who disappeared on Feb. 13, 2017. After hiking the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, indiana.

Their bodies were found the next day near the trail, with both throats slit. It would take five years for Allen to be arrested in October 2022. One of the few items released by investigators searching for the suspect was a grainy picture of the “bridge man.”

During closing arguments Thursday, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland insisted that Allen was the “Bridge Man” in the Snapchat video Libby recorded on her cellphone just before she was killed.

McLeland said Allen repeatedly confessed to the murders in recorded phone calls played for the jury, including Allen telling his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

He also argued that some of Allen’s incriminating statements contained information only the killer could have known.

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

But defense attorney Bradley Rozzi argued that Allen’s confessions were unreliable because Allen suffered a severe mental health crisis under the stress of being in isolation.

A psychiatrist who testified at the hearing supported the claim, stating that being in solitary confinement for months could cause a person to become delusional and psychotic.

Rozzi also criticized the prosecution’s timeline, highlighting four points including the state’s “broken” murder timeline, “bungled” ballistics, “false” confessions and digital forensics, telling jurors that Allen was not the killer.

“We had to do their job time and time again,” Rozzi said of investigators on the case.

The state’s timeline did not match the evidence, he said, suggesting one or more people may have kidnapped the teens and taken them back to their location early the next day. Fox 59 reported.

Rozzi also focused on witness Brad Weber, who gave conflicting testimony in previous police statements about whether he went directly home after work on the day of the murders. He claimed that at 2.30pm on February 13, 2017, he drove his white van along Deer Creek, where the girls’ bodies were found.

Based on signals from Libby’s phone, the timeline appears to align with the case put forward by the prosecution, which claims the killer took the girls down the hill at 2:31 p.m. The last ping of the phone was at 2:32pm

Last week, the court heard from psychologist Dr. He listened as Monica Wala told jurors how Allen confessed in detail to the crimes while he was in Westville Correctional Facility.

She claimed Allen told her his intention was to rape the girls, but that a white van “scared” him. He then forced them into the forest and slit the girls’ throats before covering them with sticks; It was a detail that matched the crime scene.

Perhaps the defense’s biggest revelation in court was when a digital forensics expert said Libby had a headset or auxiliary cable plugged into her cellphone for about five hours after she and Abby disappeared. Her testimony called into question investigators’ belief that the girls were killed and left in the woods around 2:32 p.m.

During the trial, prosecutors showed the court grainy cellphone video that showed Allen walking behind Abby as she crossed the Monon High Bridge.

A state trooper who listened to more than 700 phone calls made by Allen identified Allen’s voice in the video telling the teens to “get down the hill,” McLeland said.

Prosecutors said the “unspent bullet” found among the girls’ bodies at the scene came from Allen’s .40-caliber Sig Sauer pistol.

While prosecutors said the bullet was “returned” to Allen’s gun, a firearms expert called by the defense during the trial questioned the state police’s analysis of that unspent bullet.

According to Fox 59, the defense closed by calling the “magic bullet” a “tragic bullet” and said that the totality of the evidence “makes it impossible for Richard Allen to be the murderer.”

No one identified Allen as the “Bridgeman,” Rozzi told the jury, adding that there was no DNA or digital evidence linking him to the crime scene and there was no connection between Allen and the girls.

He finished his closing statement with a photo of a medieval torture device and showed photos of Allen’s prison cell, showing people lying naked, some with hoods on.

Rozzi said Allen was being held in “conditions no man or woman could endure.”

“We asked you to release Richard Allen and find him not guilty,” he added.

Before the trial began, Allen’s lawyers had tried to argue that the girls were killed during a ritual sacrifice by members of a white nationalist group known as Odinists, who follow a pagan Norse religion, but the judge ruled against that argument, saying the defense “failed.” to provide acceptable evidence of such a connection”.

The bizarre case that has captured the attention of true crime enthusiasts but also been shrouded in mystery, plagued by delays, changing narratives, controversies, chaotic developments and evidence leaks, is now in the hands of the jury.