A man accused of killing two teenage girls in a small Indiana community chased them off a hiking trail before cutting their throats, prosecutors said Friday, citing unspecified evidence. Jurors were told the footage included the bullet used and a video recorded on the eldest daughter's cell phone.
“The last thing the girls saw was Richard Allen's face,” said Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McClelland.
And they heard his “chilling words: ‘Girls, down the hillMcCleland said while Allen brandished the gun.
“The girls complied out of fear.”
Richard Allen, 52, is charged with two counts of murder and two additional counts of kidnapping or attempted murder.
In Delphi, a town of 3,000 people, the trial was a spectacle, with people lining up in the morning cold to secure seats in the courtroom.
Allen, a pharmacy technician, was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German. The incident troubled the police and sparked much speculation as an actual crime. enthusiast.
The outsized media attention in the small community prompted a specially appointed judge to select the jury in Fort Wayne, nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.
They will be kept in isolation for what will likely be a month-long trial, barred from watching the news and allowed only limited cell phone use to call relatives while being monitored.
In his opening statement, McLeanland described the crime scene as a rugged, wooded area near the Monon High Bridge Trail outside Delphi, the Carroll County seat.
He said the unspent bullets found at the “grisly” scene among the girls' bodies were from Mr Allen's gun, and that grainy images and audio of him were taken by Mr Jarman on her mobile phone. He said it was captured.
A short video released in 2019 also came from German's cell phone and showed the suspect walking across the Monon High Bridge.
McCleland said the man was Allen.
Investigators searched Allen's home in 2022 and seized a .40-caliber handgun.
Prosecutors said in court documents released weeks after the arrest that an unused bullet found between Mr. Williams and Mr. German was found to have been “fired” into Mr. Allen's handgun. It was revealed that the results were revealed.
McCleland told jurors that in addition to gunshot evidence, they will also hear incriminating statements Allen made to correctional officers, inmates, law enforcement and even his wife.
“They had details that only the killer could know,” the prosecutor said.
“Richard Allen is the man on the bridge.”
Allen shook his head at times as McCleland spoke, and his wife, who was sitting in the audience, shook her head as well when prosecutors told him her husband had confessed.
Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin told the jury there was sufficient reasonable doubt.
He said Allen's comments were made under the stress of being confined in a small cell with constant surveillance after his arrest.
Baldwin noted that Allen shot the girls in the back, but noted that did not cause their deaths.
He said some police officers believed they could not commit a murder alone.
“Richard Allen is innocent,” Baldwin told jurors.
“He is truly innocent.”
The teens, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on February 14, 2017.
They had gone missing the previous day while hiking a trail on a mild winter school holiday day.
Within days, police released files found on the German's cell phone.
Along with the bridge video, investigators released one sketch of the suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019.
After years passed without a suspect identified, investigators said they retrospectively reviewed historical information.
Investigators discovered Allen had been questioned in 2017.
According to the affidavit, on the day Williams and German went missing, he told officers he was walking down the street and saw three “women” on a bridge called Freedom Bridge but did not speak to them. He said he spoke.
Allen also told officers that he didn't see anyone as he walked from the bridge to the Monon High Bridge, but that he was distracted by “looking at the stock market on his cell phone while walking.” .
Police interviewed Allen again on October 13, 2022, and said he had seen three “boys and girls” during a walk in 2017.
Investigators searched the home within a few days and discovered a .40-caliber handgun.
In previous hearings, Allen's lawyers had sought to argue that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a Scandinavian pagan and white supremacist group known as the Odinists.
On Friday afternoon, several of the girls' relatives, including German's grandmother, Becky Patti, testified and told jurors that the two friends were very close and that Williams had traveled to Florida with her family. He said that he had done so before.
She choked up as she recalled her last conversation with her granddaughter, the morning German's sister Kelsi dropped her off on the morning the girls left for a hiking trip to the Monon High Bridge.
Patti said she told her granddaughter to dress warmly for the field trip despite the mild weather.
“The last thing she said to me was, 'Grandma, we're going to be okay,'” Patty said.
Judge Fran Gall has prohibited news media from using electronic devices to report directly from the courtroom.
The judge also established strict rules regarding photo and video coverage outside court.
Police seized cameras from several journalists outside the building Friday morning before court proceedings began, including two cameras from an Associated Press photographer.
