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Join Telegram ChannelAn Indiana jury Monday afternoon found double murder suspect Richard Allen guilty of all charges related to the February 2017 killing of two girls who were walking during a hiking trial in Delphi, known as name of Delphi murders.
The case had been going on for more than seven years since Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, disappeared while out for a walk on February 13, 2017, and investigators found them both brutally murdered the next day. , with sticks covering their bodies in a wooded area near the High Monon Trail.
Allen was convicted of two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder. He will be sentenced on December 20, according to media reports, and faces up to 130 years in prison.
Prosecutors pointed to various evidence that places Allen at the scene at the time of the crime, including an unexpended bullet at the crime scene matching a gun recovered from Allen's home in 2022, as well as the dozens of confessions that he did in prison, according to FOX 59 Indianapolis.
Allen's defense relied heavily on expert analysis showing Allen's unhealthy mental state following his 2022 arrest, which surprised the Delphi community at the time. Allen was a longtime CVS employee in the small Indiana town when police arrested him five years after the murders.
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Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County Courthouse following a hearing, November 22, 2022, in Delphi, Indiana. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Toward the end of Allen's trial, the defense also presented testimony from a former FBI forensic expert who said it appeared someone had plugged headphones into Libby's phone — which was discovered near girls' bodies on February 14 – at 5:45 p.m. February 13, a few hours after they were last seen.
The earpieces were then removed from the phone at 10:32 p.m., Stacey Eldridge said, which could call into question the prosecution's timeline that they were killed around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, according to FOX 59.
DELPHI MURDERS SUSPECT CONFESSED TO KILLING 2 GIRLS ON HIKING TRAIL IN SMALL TOWN, PRISON DOC SAYS
Superintendent. Indiana State Police Doug Carter, right, speaks during a news conference on an update on the investigation into the Delphi murders, Monday, April 22, 2019 at the Canal Delphi Center. (Nikos Frazier | Journal & Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told jurors in opening statements that when searchers found the two girls dead in a wooded area near the Monon High Bridge, Libby was naked and covered in blood. The two girls had their throats cut several times, FOX 59 reported.
Other clothes were mismatched or thrown into nearby Deer Creek, McLeland said. Abby was wearing her own undershirt but Libby's sweatshirt. She was also wearing jeans and shoes, but her socks were missing. One of Libby's shoes and Libby's cell phone were under Abby's body.
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Snow covers the water of Deer Creek as the Monon High Bridge looms above, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022 in Delphi. Abby Williams and Libby German, both Delphi eighth graders, were murdered while hiking a popular community trail near Delphi on February 13, 2017. (Nikos Frazier / Journal & Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK)
One of the key pieces of evidence presented during the trial was a video Libby took on her phone at some point before she and Abby were killed.
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For the first time since the girls were reported missing, jurors were able to watch 43 seconds of the crucial video in court on October 22. The video shows Libby and Abby walking with a stranger wearing a hat and blue jacket who has become known. for the past five years under the name “Bridge Guy”. Libby captured the video at 2:13 p.m., less than 25 minutes after she and Abigail's family members dropped them off at the trail.
“Guys, down the hill,” the man can be heard telling the girls in the video.
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In this courtroom sketch, Richard Allen, left, sits next to one of his defense attorneys, Andrew Baldwin, in a courtroom at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi , Indiana, Saturday, November 2, 2024. (Li Buszka via AP, Pool)
Allen admitted in a prison confession that he had in fact ordered the girls to “go down the hill.” He also repeatedly confessed to killing the girls, apparently saying he wanted to rape them but was frightened by a van driving nearby, at which point he decided to kill them.
His lawyers said his declining mental stability led him to make false statements behind bars.
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Delphi police recovered Libby's cell phone from underneath her body on February 14, 2017. The phone contained a 43-second video showing Abigail walking across the Monon High Bridge in Delphi toward Libby while a man wearing a dark jacket and Jean walked behind her. (FOX Nation)
Additionally, witnesses who testified at Allen's trial said they saw Allen on or around High Monon Trail on February 13, around the time the girls disappeared.
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More than five years after their death, investigators executed a search warrant at Allen's home in Delphi on October 13, 2022, and they recovered a blue Carhartt jacket, a SIG Sauer P226 .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun and a .40 caliber S&W cartridge from a “memorabilia box in wood” in a dresser between two closets in Allen’s bedroom, authorities said.
The handgun recovered from Allen's home matched an unspent .40-caliber bullet found by police at the site of the murders in 2017, police said.
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The defense had previously argued in court documents that members of an Odinist sect killed the girls in a ritual sacrifice, but a judge ultimately decided not to allow evidence relating to that theory into court during the trial. It's possible they could argue the Odinist theory on appeal, according to attorneys who spoke to Fox News Digital.
Fox News' Patrick McGovern and Kailey Schuyler contributed to this report.