Delphi murders trial: Week 3 review – National & International News – FRI 1Nov2024

It has been a wild week of testimony in the trial of Richard Allen for the 2017 murders of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, in Delphi, IN. You can read more about the previous week’s testimony here. The trial is not being broadcast but local Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR is providing excellent coverage. 

The state wrapped up its case in chief yesterday after several packed and emotional days of testimony. This included videotaped interviews conducted by law enforcement with Richard Allen prior to his arrest in October 2022. Then, several members of prison staff were called to describe the conditions of Allen’s incarceration at Westfield Correctional facility, as well as to give their accounts of 60+ confessions Allen made to the crime of killing Abby and Libby.  This along with witness testimony made up the core of their case against Allen.

However, there are several widely noted defects in each element of the state’s case against Allen. It was already explained last week that witness testimony, as well as key bullet evidence (Allen’s only physical link to the crime scene) may be in doubt. This week’s testimony has not exactly been a slam dunk for the prosecution either.

No DNA, pushy police

The state started off this week on Monday with a DNA analyst who testified that after testing dozens of samples both from the crime scene and from Allen’s home, no DNA was found linking Allen to the crime scene or linking the girls to Allen.

On Tuesday, the jury was able to view Allen’s videotaped police interviews conducted on October 13 and 26, 2022. These likely did not do the state many favors either. While the videos have not been made public yet, observers in the courtroom have said that the police came off as quite aggressive and manipulative of Allen. The interrogators repeatedly lied about the extent of the evidence they had against him. Allen for the most part was polite, but became increasingly incredulous and exasperated. If one were to imagine that Allen might be innocent, this predicament would be quite Kafkaesque.

Deplorable prison conditions

Also on Tuesday, the jury heard that rather than being held in a county jail for pretrial detention, as is typical, Allen was instead sent for “safekeeping” custody to the highest security wing of Westville Correctional Facility, the state’s highest security prison. There he was put in an isolation cell under suicide watch, where he remained for 13 months. Typically, the maximum time in such confinement should be no more than 30 days, and the average sin does not exceed 5 to 7 days. It is previously unheard of in the state of Indiana for a pre-trial detainee to be held in such conditions unless they have already been convicted of a felony.

The jury got to hear of the truly appalling conditions that Allen had to endure. He had absolutely no privacy at any time, with guards (or sometimes other inmates) permanently posted outside his cell and cameras rolling on him 24/7. Allen spent 23 hours a day in these cells. The only opportunities he had to leave was for 1 hour of rec time 5 days a week (in a small walled cell with a grated open skylight), infrequent visits to the showers, and near daily sessions with a prison therapist, which was administered as he sat in a tiny cage. The sanitary conditions at Westville also leave much to be desired with rampant infestations of cockroaches, rodents, ants, and other vermin. 

Was also unable to ever dim the lights of his cell, leaving him chronically sleep deprived. Meanwhile, fellow prisoners constantly and loudly taunted him, called him a baby killer, threatened to kill him or urged him to kill himself. They can even be her doing this on Allen’s jail house calls to his family. Under these conditions, about 5 to 6 months in, Allen suffered a psychotic break. 

Confessions, self-harm, and other psychotic behavior

It was in this state of mind that he made the so-called confessions. In phone calls to his wife and mother, which were played for the jury on Thursday, Allen repeatedly told his loved ones that he had in fact killed Libby and Abby. In one of the phone calls to his wife, he seemed less definite on the point saying that he thought that he had killed the girls. 

Incidentally, Allen also confessed to killing grandchildren that he never had, as well as his wife who is still alive and well. In his intermittent periods of lucidity, Allen apparently had no recollection of making the confessions. When reminded of them, he would ask if he had signed anything.

He also engaged in other other troubling behavior, including smearing himself with- and on some occasions eating – his own feces. He also engaged in self-harm by repeatedly thumping his head against the wall of his prison cell. He did this so persistently that he left his face bruised and swollen. Guards admitted on the stand that they would not intervene or summon help from mental health personnel during any of these instances, unless they felt that Allen was in imminent danger of doing himself serious bodily harm.

In a phone call to one of his family members, Allen likened the conditions of his incarceration to Guantanamo Bay. 

The man in the van

Regardless of the conditions from which the so-called confessions arose, the state contends that some confessions of Allen’s furnished details that “only the killer would know”. Some of these details, which had not been made public, almost certainly came from Allen’s reading of the discovery, that is the confidential papers on the case given to him by his attorneys which outlined the state’s evidence against him.

 In one confession, Alan admitted to having encountered Abby and Libby on the bridge and having abducted them with a desire to rate them. However he said that he had been startled by a van driving by on a nearby road. Then he claimed he had killed the girls instead. 

The state followed up on the information about this van. They discovered that a man named Brad Weber, who owns property adjacent to the Delphi trails, owned a white van at the time of the murders. On a typical day, he might have been traveling home from his job around the time in question.

However, Allen’s defense attorneys confronted Weber on the stand with an inconsistent statement he had made years before police came to inquire about his van. In a prior statement years before, Weber said that he had not gone home that day and was instead out working on ATM machines.

Having been caught lying about his whereabouts at the time of the murders, Mr. Weber has inadvertently put himself in the frame as an alternative suspect. The defense subpoenaed Mr. Weber on the stand and will be following up with him during their case in chief, which began yesterday. Weber is due to appear again on Monday

Judge nixes defense theory again  

Today, the defense had their first full day of testimony and suffered a couple of major setbacks. First, Judge Gull did not allow them to show a video to the jury that would illustrate the horrible conditions of Allen’s incarceration. Secondly, Gull rejected a motion by the defense seeking to introduce into the trial the theory that Libby and Abby were killed as part of an Odinist ritual. This theory has gained a lot of traction among people following the case, especially since so many elements of the state’s case against Richard Allen have not delivered as promised.

Nevertheless, the defense was able to call witnesses from the vicinity of the park in the day of the murders. Some have reported seeing suspicious vehicles, as well as unknown men hanging out on remote adjoining roads near an entrance to the Delphi trail. 

The defense also called senior members of local law enforcement, one of whom was former Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby. At one time, both Leazenby and current Sheriff Tony Liggett believed that more than one killer was involved. Steve Miller, former Chief of Police of Delphi (currently serving as the lead investigator for the district attorney’s office) admitted on the stand that many dozens of interviews from 2017 were now missing due to a computer glitch.

Allen’s team also set the groundwork to tackle the issue of Allen’s mental health and lucidity behind bars in the following days.

Click here for coverage from Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR (opens in new tab).