Richard Allen convicted in Delphi murder trial for killings of 2 teenage girls in Indiana
CHICAGO (CBS) — After more than three days of deliberations, an Indiana jury has convicted Richard Allen in the murders of two teenage girls who had vanished during a hike in Delphi in 2017.
A jury of seven women and five men spent about 19 hours deliberating over the course of three days before finding Allen, 52, guilty of all counts in the deaths of 14-year-old Liberty "Libby" German and 13-year-old Abigail "Abby" Williams.
John Thompkins, an Indianapolis defense attorney not connected to the case, was somewhat stunned.
"I thought there was a fair amount of questionable evidence, and there were some significant weaknesses in the state's case—so I thought a not guilty verdict was a real possibility," said Thompkins, of Thompkins Law Indianapolis.
Allen, appearing very pale and wide-eyed, had his Bible with him as the verdict was announced. He showed no visible reaction as the verdict was announced, but later turned back to his family and appeared to ask, "Are you OK?" His wife, Kathy, wept and appeared almost unable to stand after the verdict.
Sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 20. Allen faces up to 130 years in prison.
The case went to the jury on Thursday afternoon following closing arguments from the weekslong trial.
Prosecutors told jurors that Allen was the man seen in a grainy cellphone video recorded by one of the girls as they crossed an abandoned railroad bridge just before they vanished on Feb. 13, 2017. It was also noted that Allen repeatedly confessed to the killings in person, on the phone, and in writing. In one of the recordings, Allen could be heard telling his wife, "I did it. I killed Abby and Libby."
Allen's defense doubted the confessions, with witnesses, including a psychologist, who said that Allen was delirious and psychotic after months in solitary confinement. The defense further argued there was no physical evidence tying Allen to the murders, stating that no witness explicitly identified Allen as the man seen on the hiking trail or the bridge the afternoon the girls went missing.
"I think it was the words that came out of Richard Allen's mouth himself," said Thompkins. "Whether they were going to come back guilty or not guilty was really going to be based on what he had said in those interviews."
Allen still lived in Delphi while working at a local pharmacy five years after the teens were killed.
Delphi murders: Timeline of events
Abigail, 13, and Liberty, 14, better known as Abby and Libby, were close friends who were dropped off by a relative at a hiking trail on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017. When they failed to meet Libby's father later in the day, they were reported missing. They were found dead about a mile from where they were last seen with cuts to the throat, according to prosecutors.
Police spent years searching for a suspect, investigating thousands of leads, and releasing multiple composite sketches of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
Audio evidence from Libby's cell phone revealed an unknown man had told the girls to go "down the hill." Libby also recorded a short Snapchat video of a man who police believed was the killer. Although police circulated the photo and audio just days after the killings, the case ran cold for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Allen stayed in the small town of Delphi and worked at a local CVS pharmacy until a clerk related to the investigation in September 2022 noticed he had placed himself at the scene of the killings. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been on that trail around the time the girls were thought to have been killed. He told them he had been walking in the area and seen three "females" near a bridge but hadn't spoken to them.
On Oct. 13, 2022, Allen was interviewed again after police searched through former suspects. Allen was arrested after police matched an unspent cartridge found between the girls' bodies to a pistol recovered from his home during a police search.
Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, 2022, and was charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the charges to include two additional counts of murder. Allen has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the course of the trial, which began Oct. 18, the prosecution highlighted Allen's dozens of confessions while incarcerated: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the warden and other prison employees and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions for the jury. The defense doubted the confessions and said they were made involuntarily and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time.
Monica Wala, the former lead psychologist at Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified he initially told her he was innocent but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.
According to WTHR, Wala testified that Allen had told her, "I killed Abby and Libby. I'm sorry," and that he originally planned to sexually assault the victims but ran away when he saw a van nearby and that he had cut the girls' throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.
Allen's lawyers previously suggested that the girls were killed as part of a pagan ritual sacrifice and accused police of ignoring evidence from the crime scene. In a search warrant request in March 2017, an FBI agent claimed the girls' bodies appeared to have been "moved and staged" at the crime scene. That theory was not heard by the jury per the judge's ruling.
Thompkins said Allen's conviction could be reversed if an appeal finds the jury did not hear a fair amount of evidence.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 20. Allen faces up to 130 years in prison.
The defense could file an appeal within 30 days of the sentencing.
