OAN Staff James Meyers
1:58 PM – Monday, November 11, 2024
An Indiana jury has found double murder suspect Richard Allen guilty on all four counts in the murders of Delphi teens Liberty German and Abigail Williams.
On Monday, 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.
The jury’s decision came after a four-week trial in which Allen pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the February 13, 2017 slayings of Williams and German.
However, a gag order remained in effect after the verdict. A spokesperson for Indiana State Police, which investigated the killings, declined to comment because of the order, according to multiple sources.
Meanwhile, the convicted 52-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.
He now faces a maximum possible sentence of 130 years in prison.
The jury ended up hearing from dozens of witnesses who testified over a 17-day period.
Abigail and Liberty had been hanging out at Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, north of Indianapolis, when prosecutors said Allen used “power and fear” to force them down a hill and slash their throats.
During his closing argument on Thursday, Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland identified Allen as “the bridge guy,” a man seen in a Snapchat video walking on a then-abandoned bridge along the trail.
The video was captured on Liberty’s cellphone the day of her death and later released by authorities in an effort to identify the man.
“Now all the pieces are clear,” McLeland said, according to WTHR. “Richard Allen is the “bridge guy.” He kidnapped them and later murdered them. He slit their throats. He stole the youth and life away from Abby and Libby.”
According to defense attorney Brad Rozzi, witnesses who testified that they saw “the bridge guy,” gave physical descriptions that did not match Allen.
Rozzi also described Allen’s repeated confessions to the murder as “false,” according to the station.
Additionally, during an interview with authorities before his 2022 arrest, Allen acknowledged that he had been at the trail the day of the girls’ deaths, but he repeatedly denied killing them.
Rozzi said his confessions stemmed from a mental health crisis.
“When the dust settled, he was there for 13 months,” Rozzi said, according to WTHR. “How much can one human endure?”
In addition to the Snapchat video and witness accounts, prosecutors pointed to an unspent .40 cartridge that was found near the girls’ bodies and said came from Allen’s gun.
In response, the defense called the markings on the cartridge “insufficient” to link the bullet to Allen’s gun. During his closing argument, Rozzi called the cartridge “a magic bullet,” WTHR reported.
Allen, who was a former CVS clerk, was linked to the murders after a file clerk organizing thousands of tips in the case discovered a mislabeled “lead sheet” in September 2022.
The document, which had incorrectly been marked “clear,” showed that Allen reached out to investigators days after the killings and said he had been at the same location as the teenage girls on the same day they disappeared.
Authorities announced Allen’s arrest on October 31, 2022, weeks after the discovery.
Allen is scheduled to be sentenced on December 20th.
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