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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In February 2017, the bodies of Abigail Williams and her best friend, Liberty German, were discovered near the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, Indiana. Despite the murders receiving widespread media coverage, in part due to video and audio recordings released by law enforcement of the killer,
The case remained unsolved for years. But finally, in October 2022, a suspect was taken into custody in connection with the double homicide. Time magazine even described the arrest as a first major break in a case that has captivated national attention for six years. Is this arrest the end of the story or is it just the beginning?
This is Forensic Tales, episode number 219, an update on the 2017 Delphi murders. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings. As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases and
conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Now, let's get to this week's episode. Hi, everyone. I'm doing something different on the show this week. I've gotten a lot of requests from you to do an update on this case, and I've listened to every one of them.
So for this week's episode, I've decided to do it. It's a case that I followed since it first happened in 2017. I needed to know everything about it from the moment I heard about it, and I wouldn't stop following it until it was solved. Over the last couple years of my show, I've only done special update episodes on a few cases, like the arrest of the Long Island serial killer and the Idaho college murders.
Similar to those special episodes, this one's going to be a little different than your typical episode of Forensic Tales. Like the other special episodes I've done, I was hesitant to do it because I usually like to cover solved cases or unsolved cases where we have a lot more information and I can give you the complete story. But in this episode, I'm going to revisit the timeline of events from 2017, what we know and what's still a mystery.
We'll talk about the victims and the suspect, and we'll also dive deeply into all the forensic evidence we know about so far, including everything outlined in the publicly released probable cause affidavit. This document shows how authorities zeroed in on the man who has evaded capture for several years.
I'm talking about the 2017 murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German from Delphi, Indiana, and the arrest of Richard Allen. In case you're new to the show or just haven't listened to the entire back catalog of episodes, I've covered the Delphi murders in a really early episode of the show.
So if you're interested in going a little bit deeper into the case, you can. But even if you haven't listened to that episode, or if you just don't know all the case details, I'll cover them in this episode. Now, it won't be nearly as in-depth as a regular episode, but I'll still share all the important case details leading up to this arrest and deeply dive into the official court documents to discuss the forensics.
At the end of the episode, we'll talk about where the case stands today in 2024. All right, now let's get into it. On February 13th, 2017, 13-year-old Abigail Abby Williams and her best friend, 14-year-old Liberty Libby German, were dropped off by Libby's older sister, Kelsey, at a popular hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana. On any other day, the girls would have been at school.
But this particular day was a built-in snow day for the girls, so they decided to spend their day off exploring the Monon High Bridge over Deer Creek, near the entrance of the Delphi Historic Trail, something they and other teenagers from Delphi often did. After that, another family member was scheduled to pick them up, but the girls never showed up.
Following an exhaustive search for both of the girls, their bodies were found the next day on February 14th, Valentine's Day, about .2 miles northwest of the Monon High Bridge in Carroll County, Indiana, on the north side of Deer Creek. Both 13-year-old Abby and 14-year-old Libby had been murdered during their short adventure. Initially, law enforcement didn't release many details about the case.
They refused to say how the girls were killed or what might have happened to them. And the lack of information caused many people, especially the internet, to speculate about possible theories. It wasn't until an arrest was made years later and the probable cause affidavit was released that we finally have some answers. But even now, there are still so many mysteries surrounding this case. A lot of people thought this would be an open and shut investigation, myself included.
Delphi, Indiana is a small, close-knit community, and there was speculation really early on that the killer was local. He had to be local because of where the bodies were found. Those historic hiking trails aren't just something you stumble upon. But that's not what happened. It was anything but an open-and-shut investigation.
The investigation lasted over five long years and included officers from the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the Indiana State Police, and even the FBI. Between 2017 and 2022, the police were pretty tight-lipped about what they knew or didn't know about the murders and the suspect. They didn't even release how the girls were killed, and they never speculated about a possible motive.
The only clues released over the years were still images pulled from one of the girls' cell phones and a small audio clip of the killer saying, Guys, down the hill. Images and videos taken by Abby and Libby themselves that day. The police also released two separate composite sketches of the suspect. The first sketch was released shortly after the murders in 2017, and the second came out two years later in 2019.
It was also in 2019 that the authorities officially announced that they thought the suspect was, quote, hiding in plain sight. In other words, he was one of Delphi's own. Many people were questioned over the five-year investigation. Libby and Abby's family members, friends, neighbors, anyone with a criminal record who lived in Delphi, but none of them led to any arrests.
Over time, there became a pretty long list of possible suspects swirling around the internet, but none of them were confirmed by the Sheriff's Department, state police, or FBI. The Delphi murders quickly became a case that most people who follow true crime know about. Podcasts cover it. True crime blogs wrote about it. Books were even written about the murders, including Down the Hill, written by journalist Susan Hendricks.
But no matter how much the true crime community and the internet talked about the case, everything seemed to be at a standstill. And for five long years, the murders of Abby and Libby remained unsolved. Until late 2022. On October 26, 2022, a suspect was finally taken into custody in connection with the murders. His name? Richard Matthew Allen.
But who exactly is Richard Allen? And what do the police and prosecutors have as far as evidence goes against him? Let's start with what we know about him. At the time of Abby and Libby's deaths, Allen would have been 44 years old. He lived in Delphi alongside the other 3,000 people who called this small, close-knit town home. According to The Independent, Allen lived less than five minutes away from where the bodies were found.
living in a neighborhood southwest of the Monon High Bridge. So the investigator's theory about the killer being local to Delphi was correct, if in fact Allen is the guy. According to online records, Allen has lived in Delphi since at least 2006 and in Indiana his whole entire adult life. He's married and has an adult daughter. Both identities I'll keep out of this episode for their privacy.
At the time of his arrest, he worked at a local CVS pharmacy store where he worked as a pharmacy technician, coming into contact with members of the community every single day, possibly even some of Libby and Abby's own family members. Immediately after Allen's arrest, CVS offered its condolences to the victim's families and said it would cooperate with the investigation in any way that it could. In their statement, they said, quote,
End quote. A lot of Delphi residents were also shocked by the news.
Many people described Allen as just an ordinary guy. He might have been a little quiet and reserved, but he came across as completely normal. He wasn't what anyone would describe as a quote-unquote murderer. He didn't even have a criminal record. Now let's talk about everything outlined in the recently made public eight-page probable cause affidavit. State of Indiana vs. Richard M. Allen.
Case number 08C01-2210-MR-01. Let's start with exactly where the girls' bodies were found. According to the court documents, quote,
On February 14, 2017, Victim 1 and Victim 2 were found deceased in the woods approximately 0.2 miles northwest of the Monon High Bridge in Carroll County. Their bodies were located on the north side of Deer Creek. At the time, the Monon High Bridge Trail was approximately one mile gravel trail terminating at the Monon High Bridge.
The Monon High Bridge is an abandoned railroad trestle approximately 0.25 miles long, spanning the Deer Creek and the Deer Creek Valley on the southwest end of the trail. Approximately 0.7 miles northwest of the trail from the northwestern edge of the Monon High Bridge is the Freedom Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge spanning State Road 25.
Approximately 350 feet west of Freedom Bridge was a former railroad overpass over Old State Road 25, also known as Country Road 300 North. The trail terminated just west of the former railroad overpass. The majority of the trail is in a wooded area with a steep embankment on the south side of the trail.
The entirety of the trail and the location of the girls' bodies were and are located in Carroll County, Indiana, end quote. So stopping there, we don't really learn anything new here. We already know that Abby and Libby's bodies were found on February 14th. This just helped a better picture or paint a better picture of the area, especially for those of us not from this part of Indiana.
Now things do get a little more interesting in the next part of the document. I'll read it. Quote, Through interviews, reviews of electronic records, and review of video at the Hoosier Harvest Store, investigators believe victim one and victim two were dropped off across from the Mears farm at 1.49 p.m. on February 13, 2017 by Redacted.
The Mears Farm is located on the north side of the country road, 300 north, near an entrance to the trails. A video from Victim's 2 phone shows that at 2.13 p.m., Victim 1 and Victim 2 encountered a male subject on the southwest portion of the Monon High Bridge. The male ordered the girls, guys, down the hill. No witnesses saw them after this time.
No outgoing communications were found on victim two's phone after this time. Their bodies were discovered on February 14th, 2017. End quote. Although it's been redacted from the court documents, and that might be something I say throughout this episode, if things are redacted, I'm simply just going to say redacted.
But we know, based on other information, that Abby and Libby were dropped off at the trail by Kelsey German, Libby's older sister. And then they were supposed to be picked up by another family member later that afternoon. But we also learn that the girls probably first encountered Alan sometime between 2 and 2.13 p.m. This would have allowed enough time to get from where they were dropped off to the Monon High Bridge.
We also know Libby started recording the man at 2.13 p.m., so they likely first ran into him a few minutes before that. He looked suspicious. She pulled out her cell phone and then started recording him. This part of the document also suggests that the girls were killed pretty quickly. After that, audio was taken of the guy saying, quote, "'Guys down the hill.'"
There wasn't any more cell phone communication from either phone after that. So either Richard Allen took their cell phones away so that they couldn't use them to call for help, or they were killed within minutes of that audio and video being taken. The next part of the document moves into some of the forensic evidence that we didn't know about before. And that's the unspent shell casing found near the girls' bodies. Here's what it says, quote,
End quote.
To be clear, none of that says that Abby or Libby were shot. This just means unspent shell casings from a .40 caliber gun were found near their bodies. But how does all of that connect back to Richard Allen, and what does it mean for investigators and prosecutors? Well, according to the court documents, quote,
On October 13, 2022, investigators executed a search warrant of Richard Allen's residence at 1967 North Whiteman Drive, Delphi, Carroll County, Indiana. Among other items, officers located jackets, boots, knives, and firearms, including a Sig Sauer Model P226,
40 caliber pistol with serial number U625627. Between October 14th and October 19th, the Indiana State Police Laboratory performed an analysis on Allen's six-hour Model P226.
The laboratory performed a physical examination and classification of the firearm, function test, barrel and overall length assessment, test firing, ammunition component characterization, microscopic comparison, and NIBIN.
The laboratory determined the unspent round located within two feet of victim two's body had been cycled through Richard M. Allen's Sig Sauer model P226, end quote. But there's more. How confident can investigators feel that the shell casing came from Allen's gun and not anyone else's?
Is it possible someone else walking on the trails that day had a similar .40 caliber gun and might have accidentally dropped the casing? Or could have Allen's gun have been stolen or was someone borrowing it? To address these questions, here's what they said. Quote, again, this is from the court documents. Investigators then ran the firearm and found that the firearm was purchased by Richard Allen in 2001.
Richard Allen voluntarily came to the Indiana State Police post on October 26, 2022. He spoke with investigators and stated that he never allowed anyone to use or borrow the Sig Sauer Model P226 firearm. When asked about the unspent bullet, he did not have an explanation of why the bullet was found between the bodies of victim one and victim two.
He again admitted that he was on the trail, but denied knowing victim one or victim two and denied any involvement in their murders. End quote. Okay, there's a lot for us to unpack here. First, staying on the topic of the gun, Richard Allen himself admitted to the police that he owned that particular firearm and through his own admission, he never let anyone borrow it.
So there was no other explanation for this specific bullet to be found at the crime scene. The gun belonged to him. He didn't let anyone use or borrow it. And through forensic analysis, we know the bullet came from this particular gun that he purchased back in 2001 and was registered under his name. So there's no question that the bullet belonged to Richard Allen. And if this case eventually does go to trial...
I have no idea how his defense team is going to try to explain why it was there if he's innocent in all of this. There was something else mentioned in that part of the court document, and that was Richard Allen's own admission to being on the trails that day, the same day that Abby and Libby were murdered. During these police interviews, he essentially admitted to being in the same exact area where all of this happened. So what evidence does the police have to support that?
Well, the first comes from other people on the trails on February 13th. According to the police reports, at least three other teenagers were out there that day. In the report, they refer to them as, quote, three juveniles. According to them, they were walking on the trail toward Freedom Bridge to go home when they encountered a male walking from Freedom Bridge toward the Monon High Bridge.
They all described him as this creepy guy wearing blue jeans and a light blue jacket. They also said that he seemed to be intentionally trying to keep his head down so that they couldn't get a good look at his face. One of the girls said she said hi to him as he walked by, but he never looked up or made eye contact with her. She also described him as, quote, not very tall with a bigger build. He might have been around 5 feet 10 inches and walked with his hands in his pockets.
This description almost perfectly matches the photos and videos of Richard Allen found on Abby and Libby's cell phone that day. So the same guy the three teenagers saw was the same guy Libby recorded on her cell phone, a.k.a. who the police believe is Richard Allen. Besides the three juveniles, another witness was mentioned in the court documents.
This next part is a little long, but I think it's important because it's yet another person who placed Richard Allen at the scene. She also places both Abby and Libby there. Quote,
Video from the Hoosier Harvest Store captured Redacted vehicle traveling eastbound at 1.46 p.m. toward the entrance across from the Mears Farm. Redacted advised she saw four juvenile females walking on the bridge over Old State Road 25 as she was traveling underneath on her way to park.
Redacted advised there were no other cars parked across from the Mears farm where she parked. She advised she walked to the Monon High Bridge and observed a male matching the one from Victim 2's video. She described the male she saw as a white male wearing blue jeans and a blue jacket. She advised he was standing on the first platform of the Monon High Bridge approximately 50 feet from her.
She advised she turned around at the bridge and continued her walk. She advised approximately halfway between the bridge and the parking area across from Mears Farm, she passed two girls walking toward Monon High Bridge. She advised she believed the girls were victim one and victim two, end quote.
So now that's four people who the police and prosecutors have as witnesses who all say that a guy matching Allen's description was there. And this last witness even remembered seeing Abby and Libby walking toward the bridge. Now, what did Allen have to say about that? According to the documents, when the police interviewed him on October 13th, 2022, he
Allen admitted he was on the trails the day the girls were killed from 1.30 to 3.30 p.m. He even admitted to seeing the three juveniles who were also interviewed. But he specifically denied ever seeing or talking to Abby or Libby. In his statement, he said he went to the Monon High Bridge that day to watch the fish.
He said he walked out to the first platform on the bridge, walked back, and then sat on a bench on the trail for a little while before going back home. So Allen basically placed himself right there at the crime scene on the same exact day at the same exact time. He told investigators he was wearing blue jeans and a blue or black Carhartt jacket with a hood that day.
He might have even been wearing a hat, but he said that he couldn't exactly remember. When he was asked if he owned any guns or knives, he said yes, he had some at his house. And we already know that's true because of what they found while searching his house. This information was also backed up by his wife's statement to the police. During her interview, she confirmed that her husband, Alan, owned guns and knives.
and she even confirmed that he still owned a blue Carhartt jacket, similar to the one seen in the photos and videos taken from Libby's cell phone. So based on Allen's own statements to investigators, we know he was on the trails from 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. that afternoon. But when did the police think that Allen had time to kidnap and murder the girls, especially without anyone seeing or hearing anything?
We know other people were out there that day, so why didn't anyone hear anything? A scream, a call for help, anything? According to the court documents, quote, a male subject matching Richard Allen's description was not seen on the trail after 2.13 p.m. Investigators identified other individuals on the trails or CR 300 North between 2.30 and 4.11 p.m.
None of those individuals saw a male subject matching the description of Richard Allen on the trail. Furthermore, Richard Allen stated that he only saw three girls on the trail who investigators believe to be redacted. Investigators believe Richard Allen was not seen on the trail after 2.13 p.m. because he was in the woods with victim one and victim two.
End quote.
A little farther down, it reads, quote, Richard Allen stated he had not been on that property where the unspent round was found and that he did not know the property owner and that he had no explanation as to why a round cycled through his firearm would be at that location, end quote. Now, the very last part of that reads, quote,
Investigators believe that after the victims were murdered, Richard Allen returned to his vehicle by walking down CR 300 North. Investigators believe he was seen by redacted walking back to his vehicle on CR 300 North with clothes that were muddy and bloody, end quote.
Based on all of this, we assume that Abby and Libby were murdered sometime between 2.13 p.m. and a little after 4 p.m. That's because no one on the trails saw Alan during that time window, and all cell phone communication on both of the girls' cell phones had stopped between that time as well. So I think it's safe to assume that that's when the murders happened.
Now, let's talk about the cars. According to the court documents, Allen owned two vehicles in 2017, a 2016 black Ford Focus and a 2006 gray Ford 500, a car that closely resembled his 2016 Ford Focus and
was seen on a surveillance video in that area at 1.27 p.m. traveling westbound on CR 300 North in front of the Hoosier Harvest Store. This video also backs up one of the witness statements that said they saw a similar car in that area.
According to her, she saw a vehicle parked at the former Child Protective Service building that looked like a PT cruiser, small SUV, or a smart car. But investigators believe that description also matches a 2016 Ford Focus, one of Richard Allen's vehicles that he owned in 2017, yet another piece of evidence that places him at the scene.
Now that Richard Allen has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder, what's happening in the case today? Well, in January 2023, the Indiana courtroom overseeing the case formally prohibited both officials and the victim's family members from giving out any information about the case to the public. They wanted to keep all of the court documents, case documents, and the evidence related to the investigation under seal.
But soon after that court order was made, several news outlets challenged the order. And by June 2023, over 118 documents related to the case were released and made public, including documents that claim Allen confessed multiple times to the murders in a phone call to his wife while in prison.
Three months later, in September, Richard Allen's defense attorneys came out with their own theory about who killed Abby and Libby. They also submitted a motion to suppress a search warrant on Allen's property. Under this new defense theory, Allen's lawyers claimed that Odontis killed Abby and Libby. Or in other words, members of a pagan religion that's been hijacked by white nationalists might be responsible.
His lawyers even claimed three members of law enforcement looked into this possible connection and became familiar with the names of those who might be involved in the murders by at least February of 2018. Court documents claimed the crime scene where Abby and Libby's bodies were found had pagan symbols formed with sticks with three branches and on a tree.
According to his defense lawyers, Allen had zero connection to any of these cult religious groups and that no forensic or electronic evidence connected him to the girls or the crime scene. But according to the Indiana State Prosecution's office, this whole religion theory is just a distraction.
They claim there's zero evidence suggesting the murders were committed by any radical religious group or a cult, and that all the evidence points back to Richard Allen. On top of the religion theory, Allen's defense lawyers also don't think the murders were the work of a single person. They believe it had to be multiple people, mostly because of how fast the murders happened.
Based on all of the eyewitness testimony and video evidence, the murders took less than an hour and 17 minutes. According to Allen's defense, that isn't enough time for a single person to commit the murders and get away, suggesting that more than one person is responsible. Like in many other high-profile cases, sometimes photos and videos and evidence gets leaked to the public, and this was no different.
In October 2023, pictures of what was described as sensitive crime scene evidence were leaked online. Many of them were taken down very quickly, but not before a lot of people had already seen it. What's worse is that the police learned that later on, that a man tied to the evidence leak died by suicide.
Over the next two months, so between October and November 2023, Allen was in and out of the courtroom because of issues with his lawyers. The judge removed them from the case and then reinstated them. There were also issues with the jail facility where he was housed. On one of the latest court updates is from January 2024.
And this is where Allen's attorneys called for the removal or recusal of the special judge presiding over the case. In this new filing, they argue the judge has interfered with their client-attorney relationship by removing them from the case. They also question the judge impartiality.
Even more recently, in February 2024, Allen's defense team called for all the charges to be dropped against him based on the claim that interview recordings with, quote, key suspects were deleted by investigators either negligently or intentionally. And since key evidence was destroyed, the charges against Richard Allen should be dropped.
As of now, there hasn't been any ruling for this defense motion, and Richard Allen is still in custody awaiting trial on two counts of murder. Despite all of the documents that have been released in this case, there are still so many unanswered questions about the Delphi murders. For me, the biggest question is still why. What drove Richard Allen to murder Abby and Libby that day?
Are there other victims out there? Or was this a one-and-done type thing? And if he's innocent, how can you explain away the forensic evidence linking him to the murders and the crime scene? Will he be convicted based on the evidence we know about today? Or will a possible killer be set free? As always, I'll continue to follow any significant updates on the case as they happen.
And if there are any major breaks in the case, I'll bring them to you in a future episode of the show. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case.
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