DELPHI, Ind. (AP) – The trial of a man accused of killing two teenage girls in a small Indiana community has passed the halfway mark after more than two weeks of testimony about the 2017 murders.

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

Allen’s trial began Oct. 18 in Carroll County Court in Delphi, the girls’ hometown. Jurors have been sequestered since the start of the trial, which is scheduled to run through Nov. 15.

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

Allen, 52, faces up to 130 years in prison if convicted of two counts of murder and two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping.

Here are some key highlights of the process so far:

Opening statements

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland opened the trial by telling jurors they will see and hear evidence, including incriminating statements Allen made, that will convince them he forced the girls off a hiking trail in a secluded area while they were armed with a gun and cut their throats. .

Allen was the person seen on the cell phone recorded in German the day the girls disappeared, and an unexpended bullet found between their bodies came from Allen’s gun, McLeland said.

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin told jurors that Allen is innocent. Baldwin said the jury will hear witness statements and forensic evidence that would 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 where they were found dead, Baldwin said.

Jurors see photos and videos from the crime scene

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

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

Jurors also watched a cellphone video that German recorded just before the youths disappeared, showing a man wearing a blue jacket and jeans following Williams as she crossed the Monon High Bridge.

In an enhanced version of the video shown to jurors, one of the girls says: “There’s no way, so we have to get down here.” Just before the video ended, prosecutors said, the man seen in the video he tells the teenagers“On the Hill”.

How Allen became a suspect

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

Trial testimony revealed more details about how they zeroed in on the former pharmacy worker.

A retired state government worker who volunteered in March 2017 to help police with the investigation told jurors that in September 2022 he found documents that caught his attention.

Kathy Shank testified that she found a “lead sheet” saying that two days after the bodies of German and Williams were found, a man contacted authorities and said he was behind her the afternoon the girls missing. His name was misspelled as Richard Allen Whiteman and marked “deleted,” Shank 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 location and time and had seen a man.

“I thought there might be a correlation,” Shank testified, adding that she notified officers of her discovery.

What Allen told investigators in 2017

The girls’ bodies were found on February 14, 2017, the day after they went missing.

Two days later, Allen contacted authorities and told them he was on the hiking trail on the afternoon of Feb. 13, around the time the girls disappeared, according to testimony.

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

What Allen told investigators in 2022

After Shank 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 2:00 p.m., not 3:30 p.m. , as he told Dulin in 2017.

Steve Mullin, who was Delphi’s police chief when the girls were killed and later became an investigator with the county prosecutor’s office, said Allen told him and another officer that he was wearing a blue or black Carhartt jacket, jeans and a hat that day in which it took place. the teenagers disappeared.

Mullin said he asked Allen if he was the similarly dressed person seen in German’s cellphone video.

“His response was that if the photo was taken with the girls’ 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 professed his innocence.

Allen’s alleged confessions

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

The jury earlier heard testimony from the former warden of the Westville Correctional Institution, where Allen was previously held, who said Allen claimed he killed the girls with a box cutter that he later threw away.

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

A report written by Wala and presented to the jury as an exhibit states that Allen also told her that he had planned to rape the teenagers but stopped after seeing a van traveling nearby.

A state trooper testified Thursday that Allen’s remark corroborated a statement from a man whose driveway runs under the Monon High Bridge who said he was driving home in his van at the time.

Allen’s lawyers said their client made the incriminating statements while under the pressure and mental stress of being locked up and watched 24 hours a day and being taunted by his fellow inmates.

During cross-examination, Wala admitted that she had followed Allen’s case with interest in her personal time, even though she was treating him, and that she was a fan of the true crime genre.

An unspent bullet and Allen’s gun

Court documents released weeks after Allen’s arrest show that tests determined an unexpended bullet found between the girls’ bodies “was cycled through” a handgun owned by Allen.

Melissa Oberg, an Indiana State Police firearms expert, told the jury that her analysis linked the round to Allen’s Sig Sauer, a .40-caliber handgun.

Allen’s attorney tried to cast doubt on the accuracy of the firearms testing during cross-examination. Oberg said he is not aware of making any misidentifications in his more than 17 years of analyzing firearms.

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