Source: Donnie Burgess / WIBC News

DELPHI, Ind. — The new revelation was part of Day 16 of the trial of Richard Allen, charged in the 2017 murders of Delphi teenagers Abby Williams and Libby German. Also, defense witnesses consider the fit of the bullets, the effects of isolation.

DELPHI MORDERS TRIAL, DAY 16: DIGITAL ANALYST TELLS SOMEONE TO PUT SOME INTO LIBBY’S PHONE

A former FBI digital analyst testified Tuesday that an examination of Libby German’s phone, found under the body of her friend Abby Williams in the woods near the Monon High Bridge, indicates that someone plugged in the headphones and then removed the phone hours after the girls were accounted for. for February 13, 2017.

Stacy Eldridge, a digital forensics consultant for Richard Allen’s defense team, testified that Libby’s iPhone 6S recorded audio output deep in the phone’s software, suggesting that headphones or an auxiliary car cable were inserted into the phone jack at 5:44 pm February. 13, 2017.

Eldridge testified that a headphone jack was inserted into Libby’s phone “milliseconds” after she received a phone call – a move she said would have silenced the phone. She testified that the retrieval of the iPhone indicated that someone removed the headphone jack at 10:33 p.m. that same night.

Eldridge testified that Libby’s phone lost contact with cell towers in the Monon High Bridge area from 1:45 p.m., February 13, 2017, to 4:33 a.m., February 14, 2017.

Testimony Tuesday afternoon on the 16th day of the trial had the defense of Richard Allen — a 52-year-old former CVS pharmacy clerk accused of killing Abby and Libby — seeking to change the timeline prosecutors have laid out over the past three weeks about crimes.

According to the state’s account, Libby German shot a final video on her phone — the one that captures the image and voice of a suspect known as Bridge Guy — at the southwest end of the Monon High Bridge at 1:13 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017. At early in the trial, an examination of the phone by the Indiana State Police was offered into evidence, indicating that the iPhone’s last recorded movement was at 1:32 p.m. The girls were found the following afternoon during a large-scale community search. of the Monon High Bridge Trail and nearby woods and Deer Creek.

The new evidence prompted the prosecution to seek an answer Tuesday afternoon.

1st Sgt. Chris Cecil followed Eldridge to the stand after a brief break in court. Cecil had done the most recent examination of the data pulled from Libby’s phone, testifying earlier in the trial that after her last movement was recorded on an Apple Health app, the phone received a text message at 4:06 p.m. from her grandmother, Becky Patty. Cecil testified that the last signal from the phone was 10:32 pm on February 13, 2017. Cecil testified two weeks ago that the phone records had a gap until 4:33 am on February 14, 2017, in which he received 15 up to 20 messages. all at once. He confessed that he did not have an explanation for this.

On the stand Tuesday, Cecil said that during a break after Eldridge’s testimony, he Googled other possible reasons why the phone could have recorded activity with the audio jack input. Among the possible causes he found on Apple’s troubleshooting sites, he testified, were moisture and dirt.

Jennifer Auger, one of Allen’s attorneys, confronted Cecil, noting that investigators had 7 1/2 years to trace similar data from the phone.

“And you come here after doing a Google search?” Auger asked.

Eldridge, who spent nearly 10 years with the FBI as a forensic examiner and digital evidence instructor, said he did not have an explanation for how a headphone jack was inserted into the phone “that does not involve human interaction.”

Carroll County District Attorney Nick McLeland led a skeptical cross-examination.

McLeland asked Eldridge if the iPhone would record movements if someone picked up the phone to insert the headphone jack. Eldridge said that may not have been enough to record a move. McLeland asked her if poor cell coverage could explain the inbound and outbound connections for the phone. Eldridge testified that the lost contact could have been caused by it being in some kind of metal structure, the phone being jammed in some way or disappearing from the area.

McLeland asked Eldridge if he was at the crime scene and checked the topography. She said she didn’t. And McLeland asked if getting into a car would have hit the phone enough to register a movement. Eldridge testified that the Apple Health app stopped tracking movement when traveling at higher speeds in a vehicle.

During his questioning, McLeland found it unrealistic that the girls could have been moved to the crime scene without the Apple Health app recording some sort of movement.

Here are some of the other highlights from Day 16 of the trial at Carroll Circuit Court.

PSYCHIATRIST CALLS THE EFFECTS OF ALLEN’S SOLITARY ENHANCEMENT ‘ABSOLUTELY CLASSIC:’ Dr. Stuart Grassian, a Boston psychiatrist who specializes in the effects of isolation, testified for the defense about the impact it can have, including the onset of confusion, delirium and false memories.

The defense has made an effort to undermine dozens of confessions Allen made in phone calls to his family and various prison members, saying the conditions of confinement in a segregated unit at the Westville Correctional Center led to a psychotic state.

Grassian testified that Allen’s conditions in a holding order issued shortly after his October 2022 arrest were “absolutely classic” for an effort to live more than 15 days in solitary confinement. Allen was in a sort of solitary confinement cell in state prisons until August 1, 2024, when he was transferred to the Cass County Jail.

Tension greets Grassian in the stands. The prosecution sought to limit defense attorneys from having Grassian offer opinions about Allen’s self-incriminating statements. Several times when Grassian began to weave together an answer to what he knew specifically about Allen and his situation, the prosecution objected.

Defense OFFERS FIREARMS LEGAL EXPERT: Eric Warren, a forensic firearms consultant in Memphis, testified that, based on photographs and documents, the tool marks on an unexpended Winchester-caliber Smith and Wesson cartridge found at the crime scene had “insufficient agreement” to fit the Sig Sauer P226 pistol. found at Allen’s home in October 2022.

Warren testified for the defense that he disagreed with an Indiana State Police lab analysis that showed the round had been cycled out of Allen’s gun.

Melissa Oberg, who spent 17 years at the ISP police lab in Indianapolis, testified two weeks ago that she found three bullet marks that may have come from the gun ejector, which ejects a spent cartridge from the gun. She testified that she found three other tool marks from the extractor, which remove spent casings from the chamber. Her analysis included comparing the markings to a fired cartridge, when the tooling markings on an unspent round she tested didn’t show up as well.

Prosecutors challenged Warren, asking why he didn’t try to verify the ISP’s conclusions that it was a match by doing physical tests of the gun, rather than through photos and test documents. Warren said the defense didn’t ask him to, but that he supported his analysis.

Of note: The jurors — who were active and attentive when given the opportunity to ask questions of witnesses — appeared to have a detailed knowledge of handguns. The questions for Warren were very technical and specific to the very technical testimony two weeks ago of the ISP firearms forensic examiner.