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    • Delphi murder trial of Richard Allen goes to jury deliberations
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    Delphi murder trial of Richard Allen goes to jury deliberations

    Online Niel Posted on

    DELPHI, Ind. ― The fate of Richard Allen is now in the hands of five men and seven women, who began deliberations Thursday afternoon after hearing closing arguments from both sides.

    Jurors, who were selected from 100 miles away in Fort Wayne, must decide whether they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the 52-year-old Delphi man abducted and killed himself. Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German on February 13, 2017. Prosecutors claimed that Allen followed the girls onto the Monon High Bridge, threatened them with a gun and forced them into nearby woods where he killed them.

    Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLelandin closing arguments Thursday morning, said that in order to find out who killed Abby and Libby, investigators had to learn the identity of “Bridge Guy,” the man. seen in the infamous video watching the teenagers on the high bridge that afternoon.

    Burden of justice: Jurors in the Delphi murder case will face unimaginable pressure, a life-changing decision

    “The state has shown that Richard Allen is the Bridge Guy,” McLeland told jurors, later adding, “Five years, living in the city. Five years, he lives among us”.

    Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022, more than five years after the girls’ deaths. Prosecutors argued that an unspent round found between the girls’ bodies had been cycled through Allen’s gun. But his defense attorneys countered that he is an innocent and mentally fragile man who has been driven into psychosis ― and to give false testimony ― after months of isolation in a prison cell.

    “No one has identified Richard Allen as the man on that bridge.” defense attorney Bradley Rozzi he told jurors during his closing argument. “Not a single piece of digital data connects Richard Allen to the crime scene or the girls.”

    The case was handed over to the jury around 1:30 p.m. Jurors deliberated for two hours before calling it a day and will resume deliberations Friday morning.

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    Line forms outside the courthouse to hear the verdict in Richard Allen’s murder trial

    Jurors continue deliberations on Friday, November 7

    McLeland said in his closing argument that the evidence the state presented points to only one man: Richard Allen.

    Allen used his gun to force 13-year-old Abby and 14-year-old Libby off the Monon High Bridge trail, down a hill and into the woods, where he killed them by slashing their necks. “He left his business card behind — a bullet from his gun,” McLeland told jurors.

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    Richard Allen’s trial continues with jury deliberations in Delphi

    Closing arguments were held Thursday, after which the jury began deliberating on the four charges against Richard Allen.

    he told the many confessions Allen gave to the prison officials, his therapist and in phone calls to his wife, Kathy Allen, and his mother, Janis Allen, while he was awaiting trial at Westville Correctional Center. He played recordings of some of those phone calls, reminding jurors several times that Allen confessed to the crimes of his “own free will.”

    McLeland showed the only physical evidence linking Allen to the crime scene: unspent round found six inches from Abby’s leg. He said that Indiana State Police Firearms Examiner whose analysis concluded that the round was fired in Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226, the .40-caliber pistol she has never misfired in her 17-year career.

    McLeland spoke about the two police interviews that led to Allen’s arrest. On October 13, 2022he said, Allen admitted to wearing clothing similar to Bridge Guy’s. On October 26, 2022McLeland told jurors, Allen had no explanation for how a bullet from his gun ended up at the crime scene. And Allen was getting angrier Indiana State Police Lt. Jerry Holeman continued to confront him about it.

    If jurors are still unconvinced, McLeland urged them to return to one of Allen’s confessions. While at Westville, Allen told his therapist, Dr. Monica Wala, that he forced the girls into the woods and planned to rape them, but was spooked by a van driving on a private drive near. according to Wala’s notes from that session.

    that vehicle, according to previous testimonyit belonged to Brad Weber, who drives a white van and lives near the trail. Weber told jurors he was returning home from work around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017 — minutes after the girls were allegedly forced off the trail and into the woods.

    That van, McLeland told jurors, was a detail “only the killer would know.”

    State rest: Prosecutors have rested their case in the Delphi murder trial, but is that enough to convict Richard Allen?

    What’s more, McLeland said, an Indiana State Police officer who became familiar with Allen’s voice after spending countless hours listening to all 700 prison calls to his family identified his voice as Bridge Guy’s.

    In the infamous video Libby took minutes before she and Abby disappeared, Bridge Guy told the girls, “Go down the hill.”

    that man’s voice Brian Harshman, ISP commander told the jurors, it belonged to AllenMcLeland said.

    “Now all the pieces are clear,” McLeland said. “All the pieces are coming together.”

    In his final words to jurors, McLeland returned to Allen’s own words.

    “Richard Allen said a lot of words to a lot of different people,” he said, adding that he gave detailed confessions to Wala, his therapist, because he trusted her. “Words matter.”

    McLeland left jurors with a tribute of sorts to Libby German, who recorded the 43-second video that later became key evidence in the investigation into her own death. He reminded the jurors of Becky PattyLibby’s grandmother, who said the 14-year-old’s ambition is to help police solve crimes.

    “He did that,” McLeland said.

    Full Testimony of the Delphi Crimes: Who testified at Richard Allen’s trial for the Delphi murders? what did they say

    Rozzi, one of Allen’s defense attorneys, urged jurors to acknowledge the dubiousness of the years-long investigation into Abby and Libby’s murders and to acknowledge the terrible prison conditions.

    “You would have to question the credibility of this investigation because of the things they didn’t tell you,” Rozzi told jurors.

    During his closing argument, Rozzi returned to what the defense said was a critical flaw in the state’s version of what happened to the teenagers after they disappeared. An expert in digital forensics testified earlier this week that someone inserted a headphone jack into Libby’s phone at 5:45 p.m. and someone removed it at 10:32 p.m., almost five hours later. Testimony from Stacy Eldridge casts doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the girls were killed earlier that afternoon and their bodies were left in the woods, untouched, for hours until first responders found them the next day.

    “That phone has no personality, no feelings, no opinion. It only has data,” Rozzi said. “Someone put something in it.”

    The state, Rozzi told jurors, had more than seven years to investigate what happened in those five hours. But at the end of the day, investigators and prosecutors preferred that jurors ignore critical information that casts doubt on their narrative, he argued.

    For jurors to accept the state’s timeline — that the girls were abducted shortly after 2 p.m., killed less than half an hour later, stripped and, in Abby’s case, patched up — they would have to believe that the Man by inches he did it all by himself, Rozzi told jurors, reminding them that investigators previously believed more than one person was involved.

    Rozzi pointed out what he sees as serious mistakes in an inept investigation. Police hours and hours wasted on videos of interviews with witnesses. Investigators waited more than seven years to conduct the DNA tests on a piece of hair found in Abby’s hand and to do a BMV search for Ford Focus models in Carroll County. Prosecutors alleged that Allen drove his black Ford Focus toward the trail, pointing at surveillance footage from nearby Hoosier Harvestore.

    The defense rests: Richard Allen and his defense attorneys rested their case. Have they done enough?

    Rozzi questioned the testimony of eyewitnesses who had different descriptions of Bridge Guy, none of which matched Allen. Betsy Blairhe noted, described the man she saw her as young and boyish. Allen was 40 when the girls were killed. He cited the testimony of two witnesses who were on the trail around the same time the girls were allegedly forced into the nearby forest. David McCain and Shelby Hicks both confessed they did not hear a scream.

    “They didn’t see anything, they didn’t hear anything,” Rozzi said, urging jurors to “use your common sense.”

    Rozzi also questioned the Indiana State Police firearms examiner’s finding about the unexpended round. He called it a “magic bullet” that is “nothing more than a tragic bullet.”

    Allen’s actions shortly after the girls were killed and in the days leading up to his arrest do not suggest guilt, Rozzi argued. Allen self-reported to the police on February 16, 2017 that he was on the route. On Oct. 13, 2022, and Oct. 26, 2022, he voluntarily went to police headquarters for questioning, Rozzi said, and on both occasions maintained his innocence.

    Rozzi acknowledged that Allen became enraged during the second questioning, but said: “If someone was coming at you for killing two girls, your answer would be the same.”

    Rozzi then turned to the conditions of Allen’s incarceration that drove the already troubled man into a state of psychosis. Allen, who has a history of depression and anxietyhe was taken to Westville in November 2022, shortly after he was arrested.

    “Mr. Allen was a fragile egg when he landed on that threshold,” Rozzi said, adding that he was housed and treated the same as some of the state’s most heinous criminals.

    Allen lived in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell with cinder block walls and little human contact, Rozzi said. His outdoor recreation time was spent in another walled area with a drop ceiling.

    “When the dust settles, it’s been there for 13 months,” Rozzi said. “How much can a person endure?”

    Rozzi also tried to question it testimony from WalaAllen’s therapist at Westville, that he was psychotic. He reminded jurors that prison staff injected Allen with antipsychotic drugs.

    “Antipsychotic means it’s psychotic,” Rozzi said.

    Rozzi concluded his closing argument by showing jurors photos of medieval torture devices used during the interrogation. In modern times, he argued, torture takes the form of solitary confinement.

    “When is anyone going to say something is wrong here? Where is the moral compass?” he asked the jurors. “You are the moral compass.”

    He then showed them several photos of Allen in his cell. One showed him lying naked next to his bed, his arm wrapped around the toilet bowl.

    “That’s the power of your government,” he told jurors. “No man or woman should be treated this way.”

    IndyStars reporter Jordan Smith, John Tufts and content team manager Jennifer Porter Tilley contributed to this story.

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