A resident of Indiana was sentenced to 130 years in prison for the murder of two teenage girls

DELPHI, Indiana. An Indiana man convicted of killing two teenage girls who disappeared during a winter hike in 2017 was sentenced Friday to 130 years in prison in a case that has long cast a shadow over the teens’ small hometown of Delphi. .

A special judge sentenced Richard Allen during a hearing that began at 9 a.m. Allen, 52, was found guilty Nov. 11 of the murders of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty Herman, 14, known as Abby and Libby. Jury found him guilty on two counts of murder and two counts of murder during the commission or attempted kidnapping.

Allen was convicted of two of the four counts of murder by Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gall, who imposed a maximum term of 65 years on each count, to run consecutively. The sentencing hearing, which included victim impact statements from six of the teenagers’ relatives, lasted less than two hours, and after it ended, one of Allen’s defense attorneys said they planned to appeal and seek a new trial.

“Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. What they went through was unbelievable,” said defense attorney Jennifer Auger. She added that the defense plans to give a more detailed statement later, “but today is not the day for that.”

Allen faced 45 to 130 years in prison for the murders of the Delphi teenagers.

Allen also lived in Delphi, and when he was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the murders, he was working as a pharmacy technician at a pharmacy just a few blocks from the county courthouse where he later stood trial. His week-long trial followed repeated delays, leaked evidence, the recall of his public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long attracted enormous attention from true crime enthusiasts. The teenagers were found dead in February 2017 with their throats slit a day after they went missing during a weekend hike.

Gall, the special judge who oversaw Allen’s trial, came from northeast Allen County, Indiana, as did the jurors.

The seven women and five men were sequestered during the trial, which began Oct. 18 in Delphi, the girls’ hometown of about 3,000 people, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis.

Allen’s trial came after repeated delays, leaked evidence, the recall of his public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court.

Evidence in the case

The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long attracted enormous attention from true crime enthusiasts.

On February 13, 2017, a relative dropped off the teenagers on a hiking trail near Delphi. The eighth-graders failed to arrive at their agreed-upon drop-off location and were reported missing that evening. The next day, their bodies were found with their throats slit in the woods near an abandoned railroad trestle they had crossed.

In his closing arguments, Carroll County District Attorney Nicholas McClelland told jurors that Allen, armed with a handgun, forced the youths off a footpath and planned to rape them before the van forced him to change his plans and he slit their throats. McClelland said the unexpended bullet found between the teenagers’ bodies “passed through Allen’s .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun.”

An Indiana State Police firearms expert told jurors that her analysis tied the round to Allen’s gun.

McLeland said Allen was the man seen following the teenagers across the Monon High Bridge in the grainy cellphone video Herman recorded. And he said it was Allen’s voice that could be heard on the video telling the teenagers, “Down the hill!” after they crossed the bridge.

“Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” McLelland told the jury. “He kidnapped them and then killed them.”

McClelland also noted that Allen had repeatedly confessed to the murders — in person, over the phone and in writing. In one of the tapes he played for the jury, Allen could be heard telling his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

Allen’s defense attorney raised questions about his confession

Allen’s defense argued that his confessions were unreliable because he was facing a serious mental health crisis, under the pressure and stress of being locked up in solitary confinement, under 24-hour surveillance and abuse from people who were along with him. A psychiatrist called by the defense testified that months in solitary confinement can cause delusions and psychosis.

Attorney Bradley Rozzi said in his closing argument that Allen is innocent. He said no witnesses identified Allen as the man seen on the footpath or bridge the day the girls disappeared. He also said no fingerprints, DNA or forensic evidence linked Allen to the scene of the murder.

During the trial, Allen’s lawyers tried to argue that the girls were killed during a ritual sacrifice by members of a white nationalist group known as Odinists, who practice a pagan Scandinavian religion. The judge, however, ruled against it, saying the defense had “failed to provide admissible evidence” of such a connection.