Delphi murder trial heats up as defense pressures investigators

DELPHI, India – The the first full day of defense testimony The trial in the double slaying of Richard Allen got off to a sluggish start Friday morning when one law enforcement officer said he could not recall the details of his conversation with a key witness. However, the day was coming to a more dramatic end after two witnesses faced hostile cross-examination from the defense.

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin spent two hours debating former Delphi Police Chief Steve Mullin and former Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Lisenby about what he believed to be serious flaws in the investigation. But one of the most notable witnesses that day was an Indiana Department of Corrections psychologist whose testimony supported the defense’s contention that Allen confessed to the murder. Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” Herman experiencing a mental health crisis caused by prolonged isolation.

The case against Allen rests heavily on those confessionsmany of which he did while observing death row and in solitary confinement at Westville Correctional Institution. Prosecutors claim that a 52-year-old Delphi resident followed Abby and Libby on the Monon High Bridge on February 13, 2017, threatened them with a gun and forced them into the woods where he killed them. Allen defense lawyers argued that he is an innocent man caught in a botched investigation marred by infighting among law enforcement officials.

A key part of Allen’s defense is the theory that girls were killed by unitsmembers of a pagan Scandinavian religion captured by white nationalists during a ritual sacrifice in the forest. Special Judge Francis Gall previously ruled that evidence related to Odinism was inadmissible, but left the door open to review at trial. Defense lawyers argued earlier this week that the recent testimony of the State’s witnesses was sufficient for them to present their theory to the jury. But Chayka did not change her decision on Friday.

Now, Allen’s lawyers must present their case without being able to tell the jury a key part of it.

The trial, which continues more than seven years after the girls’ deaths and two years after Allen’s arrest, has attracted international attention and is estimated to cost rural Carroll County $4.3 million.

Friday concluded with testimony from the two top local law enforcement officials at the time of the killings, Mullin and Lisenby, who were on the stand for two hours of contentious questioning.

Baldwin wasted no time questioning Mullin, now an investigator for the Carroll County District Attorney’s Office, about what Baldwin believed to be a major flaw in the murder investigation. During direct examination, which lasted more than an hour, Mullin acknowledged that police lost dozens of audio recordings of interviews during two time periods in 2017: from about Feb. 14 to early March and from about April 28 to June 2, the defense said.

“Would you agree that there were dozens of interviews that were not available to either side?” Baldwin said.

“Right,” Mullin replied.

For reasons Mullin laid out in two undated reports, the content of which was not discussed Friday, dozens of interviews from 2017 were irretrievably lost. Police have recovered video for some, but not the accompanying audio. Mullin said he believed some people were re-interviewed if police believed their statements were important to the case, but he could not recall exactly how many.

Baldwin said attorneys didn’t learn about the missing interviews until February of this year, and they only received an explanation after contacting prosecutors. Mullin said he wrote the reports to explain why police lost the evidence as soon as he found out. In a heated moment, Baldwin questioned Mullin’s credibility.

“If you could go back in time, wouldn’t you date these reports?” Baldwin asked.

“If I had known you were going to do this to me now,” Mullin replied, “I probably would have.”

Over a series of objections from Carroll County District Attorney Nicholas McLeland, Baldwin asked Mullin why he didn’t record an August phone conversation with Brad Weber, a man whose property is across Deer Creek from where the girls’ bodies were found and who owned the same type of Sig Sauer handgun. as is Allen. He asked if Mullin always believed that only one person was involved in the murders of Abby and Libby. And he questioned why Allen was the prime suspect when there were no reports of him, only a form showing Allen reported being on the Monon High Bridge Trail on Feb. 13, 2017.

“How long did you believe there was only one person involved in the murders of Abby and Libby?” Baldwin asked Mullin.

“Since the arrest of Richard Allen,” Mullin replied.

– Before that, did you believe that there were more of them? Baldwin said.

“It doesn’t matter what I believed,” Mullin replied.

The defense previously advanced the theory that several people, possibly including Weber, killed the girls as part of an Odinist ritual sacrifice. Again Friday, Gall denied a defense motion to admit that evidence, saying case law requires a clear connection between any third parties and the crime for a court to allow third-party evidence.

Baldwin cited a deposition from August 2023, 10 months after Allen’s arrest, in which Lisenby said he and fellow Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett in 2017 believed at least two people were involved in the killings.

Under direct examination Friday, Lisenby said the conviction was “based on the full information provided to investigators” at the time. When new evidence emerged and the police arrested Allen, his beliefs changed.

The juror asked Lisenby how many previous murders he had “personally investigated.” No, he answered, although he had already participated in the investigation of the murders.

During his questioning on Friday, Baldwin hinted that Weber, who testified earlier this weekgave a conflicting story about which vehicle he drove home from work on February 13 and whether he drove straight home. Weber said he was driving a white van home from his job in Lafayette between 2:02 and 2:30 p.m.

In a prison confession, Allen said he saw a white van on a private road that runs under the Monon High Bridge east of Deer Creek and leads to Weber’s home. Allen said he was scared of the van, so he allegedly forced Abby and Libby off the high bridge and down the hill.

On cross-examination, McLelland asked Mullin if he coached Weber what to say during a separate one-on-one interview in August.

“I didn’t tell him what to say,” Mullin said, and he didn’t tell Weber in advance what the purpose of the conversation would be.

Weber checked his text messages to determine that he left work in a white van at 2:02 p.m. and returned home around 2:30 p.m., Mullin said. Law enforcement agencies corroborated Weber’s account of his phone records.

“It’s certainly interesting that (Weber) was going through those text messages without knowing why he was coming,” Baldwin said. – Would you agree?

“It’s interesting,” Mullin said, “and I don’t have an explanation for it.”

Jurors asked Mullin nine questions, many of which related to a surveillance camera found near the girls’ bodies. The camera was on a hill to the west of the bodies and pointed away from them, but at one point Delphi firefighter Pat Clawson could be seen on the camera while searching for the missing teenagers, Mullin said.

Given that Libby’s phone was found under Abby’s body and the last movement on the phone’s health app was detected at 2:32 p.m., the juror asked Mullin if he believed the girls died where they were found.

“Yes,” Mullin replied.

Earlier on Friday, the defense called the police officer who first interviewed Weber. But Christopher Guthy, a Hammond police officer who assisted in the investigation, said he did not remember the details of the interview — even after being shown a report of the conversation, which he did not write.

Expert on Richard Allen’s mental state in Delphi murder trial

Richard Allen was held in solitary confinement at the Westville Correctional Facility for just over a year.

In November 2022, Allen arrived at Westville Correctional Facility suffering from depression and anxiety. By April 2023 — around the same time he began confessing to the crimes — he was diagnosed with a “serious mental illness,” Dr. Dianna Dwengerexecutive director of IDOC’s mental health services, told jurors Friday.

Dwenger, the fourth defense witness to take the stand, said prolonged isolation and segregation worsened Allen’s mental state. For a little more than a year, Allen was held in solitary confinement in Westville, where inmates are supposed to be in solitary confinement for a maximum of 30 days. According to his lawyers, Allen was fed through a gap in the door. The lights were never turned off in his small cell, and he was constantly monitored by a camera.

Dwenger also said Westville’s psychiatric staff also diagnosed Allen as “severely disabled.” Allen’s serious disability is not specified.

Allen’s downfall began in the spring of 2023 when he told family members he had found God. Later he began to confess what he had done in a few phone calls to his wife and mother, prison guards who were charged with watching over him and keeping a journal of his conduct, and also during sessions with your therapist. There was a coincidence with his confessions a series of strange behaviorsfor example, he flushed the Bible down the toilet and ate his own feces.

Dr. Monika ValaAllen’s therapist at Westville, testified earlier this week that she believed Allen was faking his strange behavior.

Under cross-examination by Stacey Diener, Dwenger, who supervises contract workers like Vala, said Allen was not diagnosed as seriously mentally ill until he the decline began in April 2023. At the time, staff at the Westville Psychiatric Facility determined that Allen’s condition had deteriorated to the point that he needed intervention, regardless of whether his symptoms were fake or real, Dwenger said.

One juror asked whether a person who feigns mental illness is not telling the truth in a confession. According to Dwenger, if a person’s story is organized, that person is probably faking psychosis. If a person’s narrative is disjointed, they are most likely suffering from psychosis or delusions.

Jurors heard from three other witnesses Friday afternoon.

One of them is Bradley Heath, who reported seeing a vehicle near the old Child Protective Services building on County Road West 300 North between 8:45 a.m. and approximately 1:45 p.m. on February 13, 2017. The car, Health said, was “possibly dark blue,” was an older model, and reminded him of a car he had seen in a Tommy Lee Jones movie. He “looked out of place” in the area, Heath said.

During a brief cross-examination of Stacey Diener, Heath said the car was not parked in the CPS parking lot. Police claimed in the probable cause affidavit, Allen parked his 2016 Ford Focus near the old CPS building before heading to the track.

David McCainwho frequents the Monon High Bridge Trail, testified that he was there between 2:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. on February 13, 2017, and walked across the high bridge to take photos. When he got to his car at the Merse entrance along County Road West 300 North, he said he was surprised to see several cars there.

“Somebody yelled to me, ‘Did you see the two girls?'” McCain, 79, said, adding that he yelled ‘No’ to the man who asked.

Darrell Sterrett, who was the fire chief for the Delphi Volunteer Fire Department, said he and his crew arrived at the trail around 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, to help find Abby and Libby. Sterrett, 57, testified that he ordered a “hasty search” of the area south of the bridge.

“I wanted boots on the ground … It was February … I thought they were crouching, cold and scared, not knowing where they were, waiting for us to find them,” Sterrett said .

Testimony will continue on Saturday.