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The Delphi Murders | Ritual Human Sacrifice or Predatory Child Murders?

2023/12/1
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It was the day before Valentine's Day in 2017 when Abigail Williams and Liberty German got a ride out to a nature reserve in Delphi, Indiana. The two teenage girls, Abby was 13 and Libby was 14, were good friends. They'd just had a sleepover the night before at Libby's house.

and they had the day off from school, so they wanted to go out and have some fun. At 1:35 p.m. that day, February 13th, 2017, Libby's older sister, Kelsey, dropped the two girls off at an entrance to the nature reserve. From there, a hiking trail would take them through the woods into an unused railroad bridge known by locals as the Monon High Bridge.

The Monon High Bridge, which stands 70 feet above Deer Creek at its highest, is over a thousand feet long and has no railings. It has been abandoned for long enough that some of the railroad ties have partially or fully rotted away. But despite its danger, or perhaps because of it, it's a popular hangout for Delphi kids, or at least it was until that February day in 2017.

The plan was for the two girls to spend under two hours out there before Libby's father arrived to pick them up at 3:15, but things didn't go as planned. The last time anyone heard from Libby or Abby was at 2:07 that day, when Libby posted a picture to Snapchat of Abby walking across the Monon High Bridge. When they didn't show up to meet Libby's father, there was little concern at first.

But as the minutes passed, the families of the two girls started to realize that something was wrong. What came in the following days, months, and years is one of the craziest cases in modern crime history. The twists, turns, and oddities of this case seem to keep coming. It's a case that involves a recording of a mysterious man on Libby's phone that was captured just before the girls went missing.

It involves missteps by investigators, baffling behavior by lawyers and a judge, and strange jailhouse confessions. It involves a catfishing scheme, child pornography, and possibly even a sacrificial double murder. So strap in as we discuss the Delphi murders on Crime Hub. Part 1: The Murders That Rocked a Community Delphi, Indiana is a quintessential Midwestern American town.

Located in Carroll County, it sits in the northern central part of the state. As of 2023, the population of Delphi is around 3,000 people. The area is home to many excellent hiking and biking trails, as well as the Wabash and Erie Canal Park and Interpretive Center, commemorating the part the canal played in the 19th century. Delphi was the kind of place where the American dream seemed alive and well.

where the residents felt somewhat protected from the evils of the world. It was the kind of place where no one ever thought two innocent young girls would ever be brutally murdered. But all that changed after February 2017. That winter day, February 13th, Libby's dad, Derek, arrived at the prearranged pickup spot at 3:15 as planned. The girls weren't there. He had called Libby at three o'clock to tell her he was headed their way, but she hadn't answered.

At first, he didn't think much of it. Maybe they'd lost track of time. Surely they would appear any moment, coming out of the nature reserve, talking and laughing. But they never came. And when he called his daughter again, there was no answer. When 3:30 rolled around, he started to become concerned. He repeatedly called his daughter, but each call went to voicemail. Abby didn't have a cell phone, so he couldn't call her.

So Derek called his mother, Libby's grandmother, to ask if she'd heard from them. She hadn't. Due to some familial circumstances, the details of which are beyond the scope of this episode, Libby, her sister Kelsey, and their father Derek were all living with Derek's parents, Becky and Mike Paddy. Libby's grandparents were also her legal guardians. They were very close, so it wouldn't have been out of the norm for Libby to have talked to her grandmother that afternoon.

But Becky hadn't heard from her, and she immediately thought that something was wrong. Becky knew that Libby wasn't the type to be 15 minutes late or not pick up her phone. Becky immediately called her husband Mike, Libby's grandfather. Mike was at work, but he dropped everything and left to head to the nature reserve. Becky also called Kelsey, who hadn't heard from Libby either. Kelsey told her grandmother about how she'd dropped the two girls off at about 1:30 before heading to work.

Unlike her grandmother and grandfather, Kelsey wasn't too worried about it at first. She knew that neither of the girls had a great sense of direction and so thought that maybe they had just gotten turned around and would appear soon. Still, all the family members gathered at the Monon High Bridge Trail and started searching for Libby and Abby. Kelsey had seen the two Snapchat photos that Libby had posted around two o'clock that afternoon. So she knew that the girls had been to the Monon High Bridge.

The family headed that way, hoping they would come upon Abby and Libby on the way. But they didn't. There was no sign of them at the bridge either. No sign of them anywhere. So at 5:30, the family reported the two girls missing. And soon after that, a search started. The sheer number of people who turned out for the search is indicative of the type of community Delphi was.

Strangers joined first responders in the woods as darkness descended and the temperature dropped after an unseasonably warm day. For hours, the woods were full of flashlight beams as people walked in lines and called for Libby and Abby. They crunched through dead leaves, struggled through dense underbrush, and walked until their legs were sore, trying to find the two little girls who'd gone missing.

when by midnight, they still hadn't found the girls. Carroll County Sheriff Toby Lezenby called a pause to the search. They'd been searching for nearly six hours and it was dark, cold and treacherous out. Plus, they had limited resources. The people who worked for the Delphi Fire Department were all volunteers and they had to work their day jobs in the morning. So the fire chief agreed to let his men go home, knowing that the search would continue at first light.

They'd also called in some dogs to help with the search, but they wouldn't arrive until the next day. When asked if he thought the girls could survive the night without heavy jackets and food, Sheriff Lezenby said simply that they had youth on their side. But even though the official search was called off, a select few decided to continue searching for the girls. The fire chief was one of them. Wintry light dawned on Valentine's Day, and the girls still hadn't been found.

The search resumed, with hundreds of volunteers once again taking to the woods. But now they had sunlight on their side. Still, several hours passed without any sign. Then one of the volunteers happened upon something that would lead to the two girls being found, but not in the way that anyone wanted to find them.

A volunteer was walking along Deer Creek, about a quarter of a mile from the Monon High Bridge, when he spotted a Nike shoe seemingly discarded in the woods. Kelsey, who was nearby, recognized the shoe. Her heart sank. After that, it didn't take long for the searchers to find the bodies of the two girls nearby. They were lying in a shallow divot in a small clearing, which was likely how they'd been missed the night before. They'd been brutally murdered,

Although it would be many years before the details came out about what exactly had happened to them in that small clearing. We'll get to that in time. Once the bodies were found, the authorities took over. The dogs they had requested were told to turn back since they'd found the girls, which was a misstep certain people who worked on the case later regretted. They had no way of knowing at the time that years would pass before they made an arrest.

The dogs could have conceivably helped them locate a trail for the suspect or figure out exactly where the girls had been before they were brought down into those woods by Deer Creek. While crime scene technicians worked with a huge area to gather as much evidence as possible, the police held a press conference to announce that there had been a double homicide in Delphi. However, it wasn't until the next day, February 15th, that the police released the names of the two victims.

They had confirmed that they were Liberty German and Abigail Williams. The town was in shock. This episode is brought to you by Acorns. Imagine if every purchase you made could help build your financial future effortlessly. Thanks to Acorns, this

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Paid non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com/crimeob. - They thought that there was a killer in their midst. That someone from their community had killed those two girls. But many people also wondered how Libby and Abby had died. As soon as the police had the postmortems, they sealed them and didn't tell the public any details about the murders.

Really, they only confirmed who the victims were and that they had been murdered on February 13th, somewhere around 3:00 PM. While it's common for investigators to hold back certain details of a murder to weed out false confessions and ensure that they find the right person, it's not common for them to release so little information.

No one, other than the police involved, had any idea whether the girls had been shot, stabbed, strangled, or any other of the dozens of awful ways people can be killed. During this February 15th press conference, police asked for the public for assistance. They asked anyone who had been in the area on February 13th to come forward with any information, pictures, or videos they'd taken while out in the nature reserve.

They also said that the investigation would be done by multiple agencies: the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the Indiana State Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This created a stir, seeing as how it's not common for the FBI to get involved in non-federal crimes. Some people thought that since the feds were involved, the murders could be connected to a serial killer.

It sent a wave of panic through the community, even though they said during the press conference that there was no reason for anyone to be scared. The words they used were no risk to anyone else. Of course, this had people thinking about the implications of that statement. How could there be no risk to anyone else if there was a child murderer around? Essentially, the press conference did little to assure the community that things were under control. The tight hold on information didn't help.

And as we go through this case, we'll see that almost any time the police held a press conference about these murders, things got even stranger. To compound matters, the police later released two grainy pictures of a white man walking across the Monon High Bridge with his hands in his pockets. They said that they wanted to talk to the man because he was a potential witness, and they asked the public for help finding him.

Unfortunately, the pictures weren't great. Since the man was captured while walking across the bridge, he had his head down to watch his footing so he wouldn't trip. Remember that the bridge had no railings and many of the railroad ties were rotting and some were even missing, even if they hadn't been. Walking down railroad ties requires attention.

So this, and the fact that he was wearing a scally cap obscured his face. Scally caps are known by many names. Some people call them flat caps, duckbill caps, Peaky Blinders caps, Newsboys caps, or even Irish flat caps. In the photo, it appeared that the cap was light brown in color. The man appeared to be middle-aged. Although he was wearing a baggy blue jacket, it appeared that he was slightly overweight.

He also wore jeans and dark boots or shoes. Estimates put his height at between five foot six inches and five foot eight inches. But the fact that the police wanted to speak to him because he was a potential witness didn't fool anyone. It quickly became clear to everyone that this was a possible suspect. Suddenly, people in Delphi and the surrounding areas were looking at their neighbors, sizing them up, trying to see if they fit the description of the man from the grainy picture.

Tips poured into the police and the investigation started to get underway. Everyone was hoping for a speedy arrest. Everyone wanted to see justice served for the life of the two teenage girls brutally taken from the world. Unfortunately, justice wasn't swift in coming. Part 2: Down the Hill The source of the picture of the man on the Monon High Bridge wasn't immediately released by the police.

The police had only speculation, thinking that perhaps it had been taken with a trail camera. But as it later came out, the photo of the man who came to be known as Bridge Guy was taken from Libby's phone. Only much, much later, we learned that Libby's phone had been found at the murder scene located under her body. Everyone who knew Libby well said she was smart, kind, and fearless. And the fact that she'd captured this man's image on her phone bore the notion out.

Given that the phone was found at the murder scene, it's reasonable to assume that the murderer had no idea his picture had been taken. If the man in the picture is indeed the murderer. More on that later. For now, it's important to discuss a little bit more about the Monon High Bridge. While it was once a railroad bridge, it hadn't been used in many years. One side of it could be accessed from the Monon High Bridge Trail.

But on the other side, across its 1300 foot length, nature had taken over. Where there had once been tracks, there were only thick trees and underbrush blocking the way. This means that if Abby and Libby walked across to the other side, they would have had to turn back and recross the bridge again, or otherwise push through the dense vegetation where there was no trail and no reason for them to go in that direction.

This also means that if someone approached them while they were on the far side of the bridge, they would have been essentially trapped. And it seems that's exactly what happened. On February 22nd, 2017, the police held another press conference and drip fed more information to the media and the public. During the press conference, they revealed that the picture of Bridge Guy did in fact come from Libby German's phone.

They confirmed that she'd turned on her video camera as the man approached them, surreptitiously recording him. Despite this new admission, they weren't ready to release any of the video, other than the still image of Bridge Guy walking along the bridge. But that wasn't all they shared. They also had a short audio clip they played for the public, asking that anyone who recognized the man's voice on the clip call in an anonymous tip.

Unfortunately, that audio clip was incredibly garbled and of very poor quality. It was hard to recognize a single word of it, much less the three words that the police said were on it. Those three words became infamous as the investigation continued down the hill. This wasn't much to go by, and it's hard to see how anyone could have recognized a voice in the garbled mess. Luckily, the authorities soon got it cleaned up enough that you could hear the man's voice much clearer.

Here is the cleaned version. These three words gave the public a chilling glimpse into what happened to Abby and Libby that day. It seems clear that Bridge Guy was telling the girls to go down the hill into the woods from the far side of the Monon High Bridge.

Given that they were found in the woods across Deer Creek from that hill, we can only assume that he had them cross the creek before he murdered them in that small clearing where their bodies were found on February 14th. While this evidence pointed to a lone murderer, the police weren't ready to rule anything out. They said it could have been two or more people who had done the murders. They said it could have been someone who knew Abby and Libby would be there that day.

or someone who had simply happened upon them and recognized them as easy prey. The investigation was still in its infancy, and the police needed leads. It helped that a $41,000 reward was being proffered for information leading to an arrest. That number would eventually reach $250,000 as time passed and the killer still wasn't found.

As you would expect, investigators were soon inundated with tips. The hope in Delphi and around the country since the case had received extensive media coverage was that there would be an imminent arrest. After all, Delphi is a small town. Given the location of the crime, the assumption was that a local who knew his way around the nature reserve had done the killings. But despite all the tips authorities received, none of them panned out.

Of course, the police weren't relying solely on tips from the public during this time. They had multiple avenues of investigation, and one of those avenues led straight to the man who owned the property Libby and Abby were found on. While the bulk of the area around the Monon High Bridge is public land, the place where Abby and Libby were found was private property belonging to a man named Ron Logan. 77 years old at the time, Ron Logan could have been a match for Bridge Guy

He had many of the same characteristics and his voice was not inconsistent with that on the recording from Libby's phone, according to investigators. Then again, most middle-aged white males in Indiana could have been a match for the picture, not to mention the voice. When Logan was questioned by police, he said he had an alibi for the time in question. His cousin drove him to buy tropical fish for his aquarium in Lafayette, 20 minutes away.

However, investigators soon found out that Logan's alibi was a lie. They also heard from women who knew Logan, saying that he had gotten violent with them in the past. He was also a repeat offender when it came to traffic violations. All these factors combined gave the authorities enough to get a warrant to search Logan's property. After all, he'd lied about his alibi, and there was no reason to do that unless he had something to hide.

The police searched Logan's house, but didn't find anything to tie him to the murders. It soon came out that Logan had a suspended license and wasn't supposed to be driving. Since he'd been out on his own during this time of the murders, he'd called his cousin and asked him to tell the authorities that they'd been together at the time. Otherwise, Logan knew he would get in trouble for driving on a suspended license. Logan was never arrested or charged with anything related to the murders of Libby and Abby.

But a clue to what had happened to the girls came out after the Murder Sheet podcast got a hold of the warrant to search Ron Logan's property. In the warrant, it explained that one or both of the girls had lost a lot of blood during the murder, and in such a way that they thought it more than probable that some of that blood would have gotten on the killer's clothes. This was one reason to search Logan's property. They wanted to see if they could find bloody clothes or evidence of recently destroyed clothes.

Although there were no specifics in the warrant, we can assume that Abby and Libby weren't killed by a gun. More likely, they had been stabbed or bludgeoned to death. To reiterate, Ron Logan wasn't charged or connected to the murders in any way. He died of complications from COVID-19 in 2022, but long before his death, investigators turned their attention to other possible leads.

Although they hadn't released any information about the nature of the murders, they focused on pedophiles for obvious reasons. They also looked at other cases across the nation, especially those in which a double child homicide had been committed. While they worked on these different investigative avenues, they weren't ready to forget about Bridge Guy. In July 2017, authorities held another press conference where they released a composite sketch of the prime suspect, Bridge Guy.

The sketch showed a heavyset middle-aged man with wide-set eyes and a short circle beard or full goatee wearing a scally cap and a hoodie. This sketch fits well with the image of Bridge Guy in the picture taken from Libby's phone. It was created with the help of eyewitness testimony volunteered by someone who was out in the nature reserve the day Libby and Abby were murdered. But still, nothing came of this. The days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.

The next major release of information came in April 2019, more than two years after the girls were killed. At this press conference, the authorities released a four-second video clip of Bridge Guy walking along the Monon High Bridge. They asked the public to look at how the man walked, his posture, and the way he moved. They also made sure to stress that he wasn't walking normally, since he was traversing the bridge, stepping carefully across the railroad ties.

We now know that the video Libby took of Bridge Guy on her phone was 43 seconds long. Out of that 43 seconds, the police have only ever released that short clip of the man taking a couple of steps on the bridge. However, one of the policemen who worked on the case went on to give an interview in which he discussed what he'd seen in the video. Although he didn't go into great detail, he said that at some point in the 43 second video, you could see the girls.

And according to him, you could see that they were scared, like they knew that they were in danger and something horrible was about to happen. It is truly heartbreaking to think of. In addition to the short video clip, they also released an extended audio recording that added a single word to the ominous Down the Hill recording released in 2017. Here is that new recording. Down the Hill. Down the Hill. Down the Hill.

The police didn't make it clear if the words went together originally or if they had been pulled from different parts of the longer recording. The third piece of information they released that day in April 2019 was the most baffling of them all. It was another composite sketch that was apparently made back in 2017, shortly after the investigation got underway.

What was so strange about it was how different it looked from the original sketch, and how much it didn't fit with the image, video, and voice recording of Bridge Guy. This new sketch showed a much younger man with short curly hair, clean cheeks and chin, a more defined jaw, and eyes that were closer together. According to the police, this new sketch was to take precedence over the old one.

It threw people for a loop and made many of them think that the police didn't have any solid leads at all. They seemed to be grasping at straws. After all, for two years, the focus had been on finding a heavyset middle-aged man. Now, the police were looking for a much younger man who looked nothing like the pictures and sketch of Bridge Guy. The killer, they said, was likely between the ages of 18 and 40, although he might look younger than his true age.

But this new information wasn't the only notable thing to come out of the press conference. Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter also spoke directly to the killer during his portion of the press conference. This is what he said. "Directly to the killer who may be in this room, we believe you are hiding in plain sight. For more than two years, you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have. We likely have interviewed you

or someone close to you. We know that this is about power to you and you want to know what we know. One day you will. A question to you: What will those closest to you think of when they find out that you brutally murdered two little girls? Two children? Only a coward would do such a thing. We are confident that you have told someone what you have done or at the very least they know because how different you are

since the murders. Superintendent Doug Carter's emotional words seemed to be carefully chosen. Some people who were in the room that day even thought that Carter was going to come around from behind the lectern and snag the killer out of the crowd right then. After all, he seemed to be confident in his notion that they were closing in on the killer. But once again, nothing came of the new information. Not for a long time. Part 3: Hiding in Plain Sight

In the course of their investigation, detectives came across a social media profile belonging to a young man named Anthony Schatz. In the pictures of the profile, Schatz appeared to be an attractive teenage boy. Apparently, the Anthony Schatz social media account had been in contact with Libby before the murders. After a little more digging, investigators found that the young man in the pictures wasn't the same man who was controlling the account.

The man behind the fake account was Kegan Klein, a man in his early 20s who lived in nearby Peru, Indiana. He used the Anthony Schatz account to catfish young women and girls ranging in age from 12 to 18, chatting with them under the pretense that he was the man in the pictures. He often chatted with them in a sexually explicit manner and requested sexual photos of the young women and underage girls.

The pictures he used on the Anthony Schatz account were of a male model who had no idea that his photos were being used for catfishing attempts. Klein also had another account under the name Emily Ann that he would use to catfish girls, developing trust with them while pretending to be a young woman. While pretending to be the fictional Emily Ann, he reportedly asked some of these young girls if they would have sex with Emily Ann's father before sharing pictures of Klein himself.

Peru, Indiana, where Klein lived, is just a 40-minute drive from Delphi. At first, this seemed like a promising lead, but with a little more work, investigators managed to rule Kegan Klein out for the murders of Libby and Abby. That's not to say they didn't prosecute him.

They found sexually explicit images of children when searching his home. And in the summer of 2023, Klein pleaded guilty to 25 felonies, including obstruction of justice, child exploitation, and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison. While Klein insisted that he never actually met up with any of his catfishing victims, it's reasonable to assume that it was just a matter of time before he did.

So some good finally came out of the Delphi murder investigation. They got a pedophile locked up for 40 years, but the murderer or murderers were still out there. And as it turned out, Superintendent Doug Carter had been right. The alleged murderer was hiding in plain sight the whole time.

On October 26th, 2022, police arrested a 50-year-old man named Richard Allen. Two days later, on October 28th, they announced the arrest and told the public that the prosecutor was charging Allen with two counts of felony murder for the killings of Libby German and Abby Williams. It had been over five years since the murders, but it looked as if things were finally coming to a close. Only, that's not quite how things have worked out since the arrest.

In fact, one could argue that things have only gotten more complicated since Richard Allen's arrest. Before we dive into this, it's important to remember that the basis for our legal system is innocent until proven guilty. And from the moment he was arrested, Richard Allen has claimed innocence in the murders. As of this writing, he has not had his day in court, although a lot has happened since he's been arrested, including several alleged confessions.

But we'll get to that soon. For now, just remember that Allen is innocent in the eyes of the law. He claims he did not kill Liberty German and Abigail Williams. During the same press conference in which authorities announced the arrest, they also made it very clear that the investigation wasn't over. They continued to ask for people to call in tips, not just about Richard Allen, but about anyone who could conceivably be involved in the murders of Libby and Abby.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland ordered the probable cause affidavit relating to Allen's arrest be sealed, which is not common in the state of Indiana. Typically, probable cause affidavits are public information, but in this case, the court apparently had a good reason to keep the information from the public. These actions by investigators and the county prosecutor led people to speculate that the police thought there was another suspect or suspects on the loose.

However, once Richard Allen's image surfaced and people started to compare it to the image and video of Bridge Guy, it wasn't hard to see that there were definite similarities. At the time of his arrest, Richard Allen had a similar body type to Bridge Guy. Likewise, his face was similar to the original sketch released by police, the sketch of the middle-aged man wearing a scally cap. Allen is also short, well under six feet tall.

and authorities had estimated Bridge Guy's height to be somewhere between 5'4" and 5'8". Despite the obvious similarities, this alone wouldn't be enough to convict the man of two murders. People wondered just what authorities had on him. How strong was their case? Was this a sure thing? Or were investigators trying to make a case based on flimsy evidence? The public weren't the only ones curious about the sealed probable cause affidavit.

On November 14th, 2022, the court appointed two public defenders to act as Richard Allen's legal team, Anthony Rossi and Andrew Baldwin. Rossi and Baldwin quickly came to the conclusion that the affidavit should be released as part of the public record. On November 29th, 2022, select court documents were released to the public.

These included the probable cause affidavit, the murder charges, and the court's decision to release the documents. This came after a hearing in which the judge decided that the prosecution hadn't shown sufficient reason for the affidavit to be kept under seal. She ordered the document released with certain redactions to protect the witnesses named in the document. It was after this information was released that the public got a chance at what the prosecution had on Richard Allen.

or at least what they used to get the warrant for his arrest. There were several different investigative factors that were included in the document, including several eyewitness reports recorded in 2017 after the girls were found murdered. But the biggest and most shocking was perhaps the account from Richard Allen himself. Allen had called the tip line shortly after the investigation started in 2017.

He said that he'd been on the trails around the same time as the girls and volunteered to meet for an interview. An Indiana conservation officer interviewed him in a grocery store parking lot. According to the conservation officer's notes, Allen admitted during the interview that he'd been on the Monon High Bridge Trail from 1:30 to 3:30 that afternoon, although he denied ever seeing Libby and Abby. He did, however, admit to seeing other juvenile girls out walking.

He said he went to the Monon High Bridge and walked across some of it to look at the fish and deer creek below, but he claims not to have seen anyone else at the bridge while he was there. Alan also admitted that he had been wearing blue jeans, a blue or black Carhartt jacket, and possibly some kind of head covering during his hike. Very similar clothing to what Bridge Guy was wearing in the video from Libby's phone.

This bit of information sent a shockwave to the Delphi community and most people following the case. The authorities had interviewed the man shortly after the murders, but it had somehow taken them over five years to arrest him. How could this be possible? Maybe there was some other piece of vital information that they had only come across in recent months.

some piece of the puzzle that had only fallen into place in 2022. It seems that most of the information authorities used to get an arrest warrant for Alan had been collected in the days, weeks, or months immediately following the murders. Of course, this doesn't mean that the prosecution shared everything they had in the probable cause affidavit. There could still be some vital bits of evidence that we haven't heard about yet because the trial hasn't started.

It could be that the police were working diligently to build a case against Allen ever since 2017. It just doesn't seem likely with the information we now have. But back to the evidence presented in the affidavit. Other people had been out on the Monon High Bridge Trail on February 13th, 2017, and many of them had reportedly seen Richard Allen out there.

or at least a man who looked very similar to Richard Allen. Three juvenile girls described passing a man on the trail who was wearing similar clothes to Bridge Guy. In Richard Allen's own interview, he said that he passed three girls while walking toward the high bridge. Another witness described a man matching Allen's description standing on the Monon High Bridge. She said she turned around at the bridge and headed back the other way, leaving the man behind her.

As she walked, she said she passed two girls matching Libby and Abby's descriptions. She also said that, other than the man matching Alan's description, she saw no other adult men on the trail that day. Another witness reported driving along a road that borders the nature reserve on that February afternoon. She said she spotted a man walking along the side of the road away from a trail leading to the Monon High Bridge.

She said the man was wearing a blue jacket, blue jeans, and was covered in mud or blood. She commented that he looked like he'd been in a fight. From video footage obtained from a nearby business, investigators were able to confirm that this witness was driving down the road at approximately 3:57 p.m. Since the medical examiner put Abby's and Libby's deaths at around three o'clock, this timeline seemed to fit.

Two other witnesses passed by an unused building down that very same road, noting a small black vehicle parked strangely in the building's parking lot. Both witnesses noted that the vehicle was parked back into the building, and one witness noted that this would be a way to hide the license plate on the back. Using the description of the vehicle given by these witnesses, investigators determined that they could be describing a black Ford Focus, which was one of two vehicles Richard Allen owned.

While all these witnesses could place a man who looked like Richard Allen in the area, none of them had seen him with Libby and Abby. And the video Libby had taken on the bridge wasn't clear enough to tell if it was Richard Allen or not with 100% certainty. But there was one more piece of evidence in the affidavit, a piece that was found at the crime scene between Libby and Abby's bodies, a piece that prosecutors were confident could tie Allen to the murders.

It was a .40 caliber bullet, unspent, still in its shell casing. On October 13th, 2022, investigators searched Richard Allen's house.

During the course of their search, they found Allen's SIG Sauer P226 .40 caliber pistol. They then sent the pistol and the bullet recovered from the crime scene to the Indiana State Police Laboratory for testing. The laboratory found that the markings on the exterior of the shell casing, made when the bullet was ejected from the gun through the ejection port, matched Richard Allen's gun.

Also mentioned in the affidavit is the fact that one of the girls on the 43-second recording from Libby's phone mentioned the word gun shortly after Bridge Guy said, down the hill. This led investigators to believe that this was how Bridge Guy controlled the two girls to get them down to where the murders took place. But why would Alan eject an unspent bullet out of his gun in the middle of a crime scene? And if he did, why would he leave it there? While we don't know for sure,

The theory is that he racked the slide on his gun as a method of intimidation before he murdered the girls. Maybe they were getting unruly and he did it to get them to calm down. But since he already had one in the chamber, the action ejected the unspent round and loaded a new one. Maybe he forgot about it after he murdered the girls and was in a hurry to leave the scene.

When questioned about it, Richard Allen said he had never been on the property where the girls and the unspent round had been found. He didn't know how the bullet had gotten there, even though he admitted that he'd never loaned the Sig Sauer pistol to anyone and that he'd owned it since 2001. Other than matching the bullet to Richard Allen's gun, the pertinent information investigators used in the affidavit had been collected shortly after the murders.

At the very least, Allen should have been a person of interest, if not the person, in the Delphi murders from the very beginning. It's unclear why it took investigators five years to make an arrest. Hopefully, we'll get some clarity on this when the case finally goes to trial. And although the trial date has been pushed to October 2024, there have been glimpses into what might go into the case against Richard Allen.

as well as how the defense may attempt to poke holes in the prosecution's case. One of those tactics is casting doubt, and with recently surfaced documents, we found that the defense has an interesting strategy.

According to Allen's lawyers, Libby and Abby weren't killed by Richard Allen. They suggest that the real culprits are followers of an ancient religion called Odinism, and that the murders were ritual sacrifices performed by white supremacist Odinists, who have also concocted a conspiracy to make Richard Allen take the fall for the murders. Part 4. Odinism and Jailhouse Confessions

Richard Allen was a family man who worked as a pharmacy technician in a CVS in Delphi. He didn't have a criminal history. He and his wife lived just a half mile from the school Libby and Abby had attended before their deaths. By all accounts, Allen was a normal man with a decent job and a fairly active social life. No one thought he was capable of such a thing. But according to the Carroll County prosecutor, the evidence against him is strong.

We've covered the probable cause affidavit, but we don't know what else the prosecutors have against him, if anything. And we likely won't know until the trial starts. On December 2nd, 2022, Judge Francis Gall issued a gag order surrounding the Delphi murders case. This means that no one with pertinent information about the case was allowed to discuss it publicly. Not the families, not the police, not the lawyers for either side.

During this time, Allen had been transferred out of Carroll County to be held until trial at Westville Correctional Facility, a maximum security penitentiary. This came at the request of the Carroll County Sheriff, who stated that he didn't have the manpower to handle keeping Allen, given all the public interest in the case and the people who might want to harm Allen before his day in court.

In fact, the original judge for the case, a man named Benjamin Diener, recused himself after asking the state for protection for him and his staff. Although Diener wasn't required to give a specific reason when officially recusing himself, it seems that the high-profile nature of the case, and all that came along with it, was too much for the judge and his staff to handle.

The new judge, Francis Gull, has had experience in other high profile cases and seems well suited to the task of overseeing the proceedings. And there has been no shortage of legal battles between the defense and the prosecution so far in this case in the months since Allen's arrest.

Since his incarceration, Alan has lost a considerable amount of weight. That's plain to see in the before and after photos of him. According to his attorneys, his mental health has been severely declining.

They said that he wasn't allowed to bathe more than once a week, that he wasn't given clean clothes, and that he wasn't able to communicate with his family or his lawyers as he would if he were being held in a jail. They also claimed that Allen had on one occasion eaten some legal paperwork he had received from his lawyers. According to the Carroll County Prosecutor, Allen had confessed to killing Libby and Abby five or six times while on the phone with his wife and mother.

The phone calls from prison are all recorded, and they are typically signs next to the phones and even a message at the beginning of each call that reminds prisoners that their calls are being recorded. Yet Allen still confessed multiple times. While these phone calls haven't been released to the public, it's hard to imagine why he would confess to the killings if he was innocent. According to his lawyers, who have acknowledged these confessions, Richard Allen's mental state led to these false confessions.

They used these statements as further proof that their client was being mistreated when they asked the court that Allenby moved out of the penitentiary, saying that he was being treated in a manner akin to a prisoner of war. They wanted him to move to a nearby county jail, arguing that it's standard procedure to have a suspect wait in a jail until trial instead of a prison.

However, when authorities looked into his treatment at the prison, they found that he was being treated better than the other inmates. He did seem to be having some mental problems, but there's some amount of that to be expected when you've been charged with murdering two people. Still, we have to keep in mind that Alan hasn't yet been convicted of a crime. The only reason he's being held in a prison is to keep him safe until he gets his day in court.

The high-profile nature of the case and the fact that Alan could be killed by a member of the public before his trial is why the court approved his detainment at the prison instead of a jail. The next thing Alan's defense team did in September 2023 was what's called a "Frank's Motion." Essentially, the purpose of a Frank's hearing is to question the legitimacy of the information used to get a search warrant.

In filing this Franks motion, Allen's defense team wanted to disallow evidence found when police searched Allen's house ahead of his arrest. Namely, they wanted to disallow the .40-caliber Sig Sauer pistol. Generally, when the defense files a Franks motion, they stick to specifics pertaining to the facts of the evidence they want disallowed.

Allen's defense team didn't do this. Instead, they released a 135-page document that essentially lays out their entire defense strategy. In it, they tell the story of a conspiracy involving law enforcement officials, Odinist cult members, and even the Carroll County prosecutor Nick McLeland.

They suggest that the only reason Allen was arrested, as a patsy, was because Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett wanted to make an arrest in the case before an upcoming election. They accuse Liggett of withholding evidence to make Allen look guilty, even though the sheriff knew there was ample evidence that the murders of Abby and Libby were done by Odinist cult members.

They also make the case that there was no way one person alone could have done the murders in the time investigators said that Allen did them. Needless to say, this document had the media in a frenzy when it came out. So much so that Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland accused the defense team of using it as a way to get around the gag order. And it's not hard to see why. The accusations the defense team puts forward read like something out of a movie.

One of the first lines of the document, after the introduction and table of contents, reads verbatim: "Members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists, ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German." The document goes on to attack every aspect of the prosecution's case against Allen, or at least every aspect known to the public.

Despite the sensationalist nature of the document, it's clear that the defense team has spent a lot of time interviewing people and going through discovery documents related to the investigation. Depending on who you talk to, the evidence in the document is somewhere between completely ridiculous or a stroke of defense strategy genius.

Some people see this Frank's motion document as a way to prime the public and the jury for their defense. The idea behind this theory is that planting the seed that Odinist cult members are to blame for the murder is much easier to do now, before the trial. If the first time anyone heard about this Odinist conspiracy was when the trial started, they would be less likely to believe it.

But now that the idea is out there, any potential jury members and the public at large will have time to get used to the idea. This could go a long way to providing reasonable doubt that Alan was the murderer, because the jury must decide whether Alan is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Part 5: The Crime Scene To support their theory of a sacrificial double murder, the defense goes into some detail of the murder scene.

In fact, it was only when this document was released that the public learned just how Abby and Libby were killed. The following information is disturbing, but it's important for understanding the entire case and eventually getting justice for the murders of Libby and Abby. This is taken directly from the defense's Franks motion document.

Libby was found at the base of a tree with four tree branches of varying sizes intentionally placed in a very specific and arranged pattern on her naked body. Libby was positioned flat on her back, with her left arm stretched above her head, touching the base of the large tree. Libby's right hand was covered in blood. Libby's left hand was covered in blood. Blood spots and blood drippings were seen all over Libby's body, from head to toe.

Libby's right arm was placed along the side of her body. One large tree branch had been placed on her left shoulder. This branch was so long that it extended above Libby's head several feet and below her legs for several feet as well.

Two smaller branches formed a V where her legs joined her body, near her genitalia, with both sides of the V extending upward toward Libby's head, with one branch extending to the left of Libby's head and the other to the right of Libby's head. The last of the four branches extended across Libby's body on a line from her right shoulder to her left shoulder.

This fourth tree branch also connected with the other three branches and was placed under both branches that formed the V.

Libby's sliced neck was partially covered by this fourth branch. There appeared to be no blood sprayed or dripped onto the leaves or the tree near Libby's head and sliced neck. It appeared likely that Libby had been killed at a nearby tree and then dragged to her final resting place where she was then positioned before having the tree limbs placed on her in a very specific pattern. The murderers treated Abby very differently. Abby was found just a few feet away from Libby.

Her body was not placed parallel to Libby, but rather at an angle, with Abby's legs just a few feet from Libby's legs. However, both of their heads were found a few feet farther apart from each other. Significant differences existed between how Libby's body was found and how Abby's body was found. Abby was not found at the base of a tree. Abby was fully clothed. In fact, Abby was dressed in Libby's sweatshirt and jeans.

No blood appeared on Abby's clothing, meaning that she was likely murdered while naked and then dressed by the murderers after she expired and after the blood had stopped spilling from her neck. Abby's hands were clean, no blood. Abby's feet were clean, no blood. Other than blood found around Abby's neck area where the murderers had inflicted the fatal wound, very little, if any, blood was found anywhere else on Abby's body or clothing.

The juxtaposition of the spots and streaks of blood found all over Libby's body with the lack of blood on Abby's body, undergarments, overgarments is stark. The murderers appeared to have gone to great lengths to keep Abby's body and clothing clean from blood. Abby was found on her back like Libby.

However, unlike Libby, Abby's elbows were bent with her right and left arms both placed on her chest, Abby's left hand and arm near the left side of her face, and her right hand and arm near the right side of her face. Also, Abby's left leg was straight while her right leg was bent at the knee. The murderers also placed her bent right leg under her left leg.

Like Libby, those involved in the murder had placed tree branches in a very specific pattern on top of Abby. The pattern looks very similar to an asterisk consisting of three tree branches all joined in the middle. At least one of the tree branches appears to have been cleanly cut by some instrument, like an electric saw, rather than split or broken by hand, indicating that this was a preconceived plan.

Above Abby's head were smaller sticks that had been placed over her hair, crudely mimicking horns or antlers. It's important to note that the wording in this document, the use of the word "murderers" over and over again is significant, as if the defense is telling you what actually happened instead of simply formulating a theory to get their client off. They also say that the branches were placed deliberately and that the murderers placed her bent right leg under her left leg,

Again, this is written as though it is the ultimate truth when the branches could have been tossed onto the girls in a frenzied effort to hide their bodies. Likewise, the positioning of their bodies could have been incidental. We just don't know. The defense goes on to describe a marking of one of the trees made in blood. According to them, it looks like the letter F.

which is apparently used in Odinist rituals. But since then, a photo has leaked to the media that contains this blood marking. To some people, it could resemble an F, although a lot of people simply see random blood splatters, as if from arterial spray. This is all interesting and there could be something there, but we likely won't know until the case goes to trial.

But other than all this, the defense still has the problem of Richard Allen's multiple confessions made on recorded phone calls from prison. They address this in the document as well, going so far as to suggest that some of the prison guards are Odinists who have been threatening Allen and his family.

They say that members of the defense team saw at least two guards wearing Odinist patches on their uniforms when conferring with their client. According to the document, there were two different types of patches these guards wore. One proclaimed "In Odin we trust." The other featured three interlocking triangles, which are common in Odinism.

The defense also said that the guards always remained within earshot or positioned Allen in such a way that they could record him from the other side of the meeting room window with a video camera. The defense team suggests that by recording him, these Odinist cult member prison guards could later read his lips to see if he said anything they didn't like.

According to the Franks' document, the defense suggests that the guards could have threatened Allen, saying they would kill his wife if he didn't call and confess on the recorded line. The following is directly from the defense document. This positioning of Richard Allen's body would allow the corrections officers to videotape Richard Allen's mouth as he talked to his attorneys.

Richard would therefore not be able to privately discuss anything with his attorneys. Such as, "The guards are telling me that my wife and family will be killed unless I call my wife and tell her that I killed those girls." It's important to note that there's a footnote in the document at the end of this quote. It says, "To be clear, up to this point, Richard Allen has never spoken these words to his attorneys.

The point is that the Westville guards have made the privacy needed for Richard to have that type of private conversation with his attorneys very difficult, and perhaps not worth the risk if you are Richard Allen. As you would expect, the media latched onto this hypothetical quote about the guards threatening Allen's wife and family if he didn't confess. Without the footnote stating that Allen never said such a thing, the quote takes on a whole new meaning.

Indeed, many media outlets reported it as if Allen actually said this to his attorneys. Some people think this is exactly what the defense was going for when they put this entirely hypothetical quote in the document. However, this doesn't discount the fact that the two guards named in the document reportedly had been allowed to wear Odinist patches on their uniforms.

The guards in question gave depositions stating that they were not part of any cult and that they had no ties to white supremacist organizations. They also said they had not threatened Richard Allen or his family while guarding him. One of them did admit that Odinism is his practicing religion. Although Odinism isn't a mainstream religion, it does have many practitioners who are normal people who have no ties to white supremacy.

It does not require its practitioners to perform human sacrifices. However, certain aspects of Odinisms have been hijacked by white supremacist organizations, on which the defense team's alternate explanation for the murders is based. And as if the information in the Franks' motion wasn't enough, there came another bombshell in October 2023, when images from the crime scene were leaked.

While the Franks motion had allowed the defense team to get around the gag order, this leak of sensitive photos was in direct violation of that order. And as soon as it came out, it was one of the defense team's employees who was the source of the leak. The leaker then gave the photos to someone else, who proceeded to offer them to podcasters, journalists, and news outlets.

Of course, an investigation soon followed. And the person who offered the photos to the media took his own life soon after his role in the leak was uncovered. Not long after this leak, the two lawyers heading Allen's defense team announced they were stepping down. Seeing as how these were the same lawyers that put together the painstakingly detailed Frank's motion, it came as a surprise to everyone. And the news came after a closed door session with Judge Gall.

Apparently, during this session, Gull accused the two lawyers of gross negligence in regard to the photograph leaks. She reportedly gave the lawyers two choices: one, they could step down themselves and save face, or two, she could force them off the case and publicly accuse them of gross negligence. The lawyers chose the first option and stepped off themselves. Judge Gull then appointed two new lawyers to Allen's case.

However, that wasn't the end of it. Allen's original lawyers soon requested to be put back on the case, even offering to do it pro bono. When Gull refused, they filed a petition with the Indiana Supreme Court to be put back on the case and to have Judge Gull removed. The argument here is that Judge Gull acted beyond her authority when she forced the lawyers off the case.

Indeed, almost everyone who is in the legal profession agrees that what Judge Gall did wasn't right. Generally, if a judge accuses a lawyer of gross negligence, there is a hearing where the judge presents evidence to back up the accusation. To maintain the legal process and protect the rights of those involved, these kinds of things must be done in the open instead of behind closed doors.

There has recently been movement on this petition, with the Indiana Supreme Court ordering Judge Gull to release the transcripts from the closed-door meeting by the end of November 2023. We'll wait and see whether Allen's original attorneys are allowed back on the case. It seems that Allen wants them back. We'll also have to wait and see if Judge Gull will be able to see the case through to trial, or if she'll be forced to recuse herself by the Indiana Supreme Court.

At the time of this writing, the trial date is set for October 2024. What else will come out about this case is anyone's guess. Until the trial, we have some very big questions to ponder. The biggest being, did Richard Allen really kill Liberty German and Abigail Williams? If he was interviewed shortly after the girls went missing, placing himself on the Monon High Bridge around that same time, why did it take five years for the police to follow up with him?

When Alan came in for a voluntary interview in October 2022, his story had changed. He said that he got to the trail around noon and left around 1:30. But in the original statement he gave to the conservation officer in 2017, he said he was out there between 1:30 and 3:30.

What happened to that information in the intervening years? It seems that the conservation officer put Richard Allen's name in the system after the initial interview as Rick Allen Whiteman. While Richard goes by Rick, his last name clearly isn't Whiteman, but at the time of the murders, he and his wife did live on Whiteman Drive. It's possible that the conservation officer made a mistake, accidentally putting the name of his street as his last name.

It could explain why the information seemed to languish for five years until investigators finally started going over every tip they'd ever received with a fine-tooth comb. But if he messed up such a simple task as getting the last name right, what else could he have messed up during his interview with Alan? To be sure, there is a lot to ponder about this case. But as we close this episode of Crime Hub, we'll leave you with one final question. Which is more likely,

that the girls were killed by a single disturbed predator, or that they were sacrificed by a cult of Odinist white supremacists that have ties to law enforcement and will do anything to protect their own.