Trial in the 2017 murders of two Indiana teenage girls reaches midpoint as prosecution closes

DELPHI, Indiana — The trial of a man accused of killing two teenage girls in a small Indiana community has ended after more than two weeks of testimony about the 2017 murders.

Prosecutors dropped their case against Richard Allen on Thursday after jurors heard phone calls in which he told his wife he killed 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty Herman.

Allen’s trial began Oct. 18 at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi, the girls’ hometown. Jurors have been sequestered since the start of the trial, which will continue until November 15.

The defense began calling its first witnesses on Thursday. An Indiana Department of Corrections psychologist told jurors Friday that Allen was seriously mentally ill when he began confessing to the killings while incarcerated at Westville Correctional Facility.

Allen, 52, faces up to 130 years in prison if convicted of two counts of murder and two additional points murder in the commission or attempted kidnapping.

Here are some key points from the trial:

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McClelland opened court proceedings telling jurors they will see and hear evidence, including Allen’s incriminating statements, that will convince them he forced the girls off a hiking trail into a secluded area while armed with a gun and cut their throats.

McLeland said Allen was the man seen on cellphone video taken by Germany on the day the girls disappeared, and an unexpended bullet was found between their bodies.

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin told jurors that Allen is innocent. Baldwin said jurors will hear witness testimony and forensic evidence that will raise “reasonable doubt” that Allen is not the killer, and said the state’s timeline does not match the evidence in the case.

Someone else may have kidnapped the teenagers and returned them early the next day to the scene where they were found dead, Baldwin said.

During the first full week of the trial, jurors were shown photos of the area where the teenagers’ bodies were found in the woods off a hiking trail. The girls, known as Abby and Libby, crossed an abandoned railroad trestle called the Monon High Bridge during a hike.

Some jurors and others in the courtroom gasped or turned away as gruesome images of their bloodied bodies were shown, while the girls’ mothers wept.

Jurors also viewed cellphone video Herman recorded just before the youths disappeared, showing a man in a blue jacket and jeans following Williams as she crossed the Monon High Bridge.

In an extended version of the video shown to jurors, one of the girls says, “There’s no trail, so we have to go down here.” According to prosecutors, shortly before the end of the video, the man seen in the video tells the teenagers: Down the hill.”

Investigators said in an affidavit released about a month later Allen’s arrest in October 2022 that he became a suspect after they went back and reviewed “previous leads” and discovered he had been questioned by an officer in 2017.

Witnesses in court have revealed more details about how they targeted the former pharmacy worker.

The retired state civil servant, who volunteered to help police in their investigation in March 2017, told jurors that in September 2022 she found documents that caught her attention.

Kathy Schenk testified that she found a “lead sheet” that said two days after the bodies of Herman and Williams were found, a man contacted authorities and said he had been on the trail the day they disappeared girls His name was incorrectly listed as Richard Allen Whiteman and marked “cleared,” Schenk said.

She determined that the man’s name was actually Richard Allen and recalled that a young girl had been on the trail at the same place and time and had seen the man.

“I thought there might be a connection,” Schenk testified, adding that she informed officers of her discovery.

The bodies of the girls were found on February 14, 2017, the day after their disappearance.

Two days later, Allen contacted authorities and told them he had been on a hiking trail on the afternoon of Feb. 13, the time the girls were reported missing.

Dan Dulin, a captain with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, told the court he spoke with Allen, who said he was on the trail between 1:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. and recalled seeing the three girls.

After Schenck brought Allen to the attention of investigators, they interviewed him in October 2022. Allen told investigators he arrived at the trail around noon and left no later than 2:30 p.m., as he told Dulin in 2017.

Steve Mullin, who was the Delphi police chief when the girls were killed and later became an investigator for the district attorney’s office, said Allen told him and another officer that he was wearing a blue or black Carhartt jacket, jeans and a beanie on the day of the crime. the teenagers disappeared.

Mullin said he asked Allen if he was the same dressed man seen in Herman’s cellphone video.

“His response was that if the photo was taken by the girl’s camera, there was no way it was him,” Mullin testified.

Prosecutors also showed jurors police interviews with Allen, recorded before his arrest, in which he repeatedly maintained his innocence.

On Thursday, jurors heard several taped phone calls Allen made to his wife from prison, in which he told her he killed Herman and Williams. In one of the calls, he said: “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

Jurors previously heard testimony from a former warden at Westville Correctional Facility, where Allen was previously held, who said Allen claimed to have killed the girls with a box cutter, which he later threw away.

Dr. Monica Vala, Allen’s prison psychologist while he was in Westville, testified that Allen began confessing to killing the girls in early 2023 during sessions with her. She said he provided details of the crime in some confessions, including telling her he cut the girls’ throats and placed tree branches on their bodies.

A report written by Vala and presented to the jury as evidence alleges Allen also told her he planned to rape the teenagers but stopped after seeing a van driving nearby.

A state trooper testified Thursday that Allen’s remarks corroborated a man whose driveway runs under the high Monon Bridge and who said he was driving home in his van around the time.

Allen’s attorneys said their client made the incriminating statements while under pressure and mental stress from being locked up and under 24-hour surveillance, as well as being bullied by people who were with him.

On cross-examination, Vala admitted that she had followed Allen’s case with interest in her private time, even while she was treating him, and that she was a fan of the true crime genre.

Court documents released weeks after Allen’s arrest say the testing showed an unspent bullet found between the girls’ bodies “was checked through” the gun, which belonged to Allen.

Melissa Oberg, an Indiana State Police firearms expert, told jurors that her analysis tied the shot to Allen’s Sig Sauer .40-caliber handgun.

Allen’s attorney tried to question the accuracy of the firearms background check during cross-examination. Oberg said she is not aware of any misidentifications in more than 17 years of analyzing firearms.