Jury reaches verdict in Delphi murders trial

DELPHI, Ind. (WXIN) – After getting the case on Thursday, jurors in the Delphi murders trial have come to a decision.

Both families will now have time to gather before the verdict is announced. Since cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, the decision will not be announced publicly until the media leaves.

After the case went to the jury Thursday afternoon, deliberations in the Richard Allen trial continued through Saturday without a decision being reached.

Allen is charged with two counts of murder and two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the February 2017 deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German near the Monon High Bridge. State police announced his arrest in October 2022.

The state made its case: a crime lab technician matched a bullet found at the crime scene to Allen’s gun; a camera captured Allen’s car near the murder scene; he admitted he was on the bridge on the day of the murders; and he has confessed to the crime dozens of times, including in jail phone calls to his wife and mother.

The defense countered, claiming the state had no DNA, social media or digital forensic evidence linking Allen to the crime. They also said his time in solitary confinement warped his mind and led to false confessions.

The state had bungled its investigation from the beginning, the defense further alleged.

The trial started with jury selection on Oct. 14 in Allen County. Due to the high profile of the case and its prominence in central Indiana, Special Judge Fran Gull decided to pull jurors from Allen County. Since the murders happened in Carroll County and a number of key witnesses and investigators lived near or around Delphi, the trial itself was held at the Carroll County Courthouse.

The proceedings began with opening statements on Oct. 18. That same day, the state called its first witnesses: Abby’s and Libby’s family members. Prosecutor Nick McLeland and his team spent 12 days presenting evidence, including gruesome crime scene photos, and making their case against Allen. The defense rested its case on Nov. 6.

How Allen became the prime suspect

Allen contacted police in February 2017 to tell them he’d been on the Monon High Bridge on the day of the murders. He spoke to a DNR officer and said he was in the area between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

But the tip sheet was misfiled and incorrectly labeled. It wasn’t until September 2022 that a volunteer who organized Delphi murders tips came across the report and brought it to the attention of investigators. They decided to take a closer look at Allen.

By this point, the case had gone without an arrest for nearly six years. Investigators asked Allen about his whereabouts; he said he was on the bridge around 12 p.m. and left around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017. He drove a black 2016 Ford Focus SE that investigators believe they spotted on a security camera from the Hoosier Harvest Store. Allen said he wore a Carhartt jacket and blue jeans that day — the same clothes “Bridge Guy” was wearing.

His interview led investigators to apply for a search warrant. They went to Allen’s house, searched his car and seized several items: multiple electronics, knives, box cutters, and a Sig Sauer P226 handgun. The gun used the same caliber bullet as the one found at the murder scene, investigators said.

An entire day of testimony was dedicated to Melissa Oberg, a former state police lab technician who examined the “unspent bullet” and eventually matched it to Allen’s Sig Sauer. She said the bullet had been cycled through Allen’s gun. Allen couldn’t explain how a bullet from his gun ended up at the murder scene.

Digital forensic extraction played a large role in the case, with investigators recovering a video from Libby German’s phone of the man who would come to be known as “Bridge Guy.” An analysis of the phone found movement stopped at 2:32 p.m. The state believes the girls were killed around that time.

After his arrest, Allen was taken to Westville Correctional Facility. He was kept in solitary confinement but eventually made a series of confessions. He told his mother and his wife that he had killed Abby Williams and Libby German. He said he’d disposed of a box cutter in a CVS dumpster. He wrote a letter to the warden confessing to the Delphi murders.

He delivered his most detailed confession to Dr. Monica Wala, a prison psychologist at Westville Correctional Facility. He told her his motive was sexual in nature and that he threatened the girls with a gun and forced them down the hill. Before he could sexually assault anyone, he said he saw a van, which startled him. He ordered the girls across Deer Creek and killed them, he said.

The state leaned heavily on the bullet evidence and Allen’s confessions while making its case.

As a result, the defense responded by working to dismantle the state’s evidence and casting doubt on the veracity of Allen’s confessions.

Allen's defense fights back

Allen’s treatment at Westville became a central theme, with the defense showing the jurors more than a dozen videos of Allen in custody. In some of the videos, he was naked and wearing a hood. He was seen eating his own feces and spreading it on the walls. Sometimes he banged his head against his cell wall.

A defense expert, Dr. Stuart Grassian, testified that extended stays in solitary confinement could have an adverse effect on a person’s mental state and even lead to false confessions. Allen’s attorneys made it clear in court that they believed Allen’s confessions, while not coerced, were false confessions made by a man physically and mentally exhausted by the difficult conditions in which he lived.

The defense also hammered the Delphi murders investigation, questioning why state investigators eventually dismissed the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the case and noting a number of procedural gaffes that plagued the investigation from day one.

Several witness interviews from the early days of the investigation were erased due to a DVR error. Those interviews could have had key evidence, the defense contended, and losing them weakened the early investigation.

Even the state’s digital forensic examination came under fire. The state’s experts couldn’t explain why notifications and messages suddenly pushed through Libby German’s phone at 4:34 a.m. on Feb. 14, 2017. The state maintained the phone never moved after 2:32 p.m., when activity tracking data showed the phone stopped for good.

Stacey Eldridge, a former FBI forensic examiner, said her analysis found the auxiliary port on Libby’s phone was active between 5:45 p.m. — when it appeared someone plugged a jack into it — and 10:32 p.m. — when someone removed the jack from the device.

Her assertion had the state scrambling, with one of its own experts saying perhaps water or dirt had gotten into the port. He later conceded he’d done a Google search during a court break to quickly find a possible explanation.

The defense also criticized the bullet evidence, with its expert, Dr. Eric Warren, testifying that he didn’t agree with Oberg’s findings. He said Oberg compared an unspent round with a bullet that had been test-fired from Allen’s gun. This was an “apples-to-oranges” comparison, he said.

The defense said there was no DNA or digital evidence linking Allen to the crime. Investigators found no trace evidence on any items seized from Allen’s home or from his car.

The defense also questioned the reliability of some of the state’s witnesses, including a key “Bridge Guy” witness who engaged in contentious exchanges during cross-examination over her use of “muddy” and “bloody,” and Steve Mullin, the former Delphi police chief and current investigator for the Carroll County Prosecutor’s Office, who was accused of lacking thoroughness in his investigation and attempting to influence Allen on what route he took to the trails on Feb. 13, 2017.