DELPHI, Ind. — Richard Allen has been found guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder in the highly publicized Delphi murder trial, according to CNN affiliate WTHR.

Prosecutors say Allen killed Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, in 2017, slitting their throats and leaving their bodies near a trail in Delphi, Indiana. The case remained cold for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.

Richard Allen remained impassive as the guilty verdict was read, WTHR reported. His sentencing date is scheduled for December 20.

The jury spent about 19 hours deliberating before reaching a verdict.

Allen could be sentenced to up to 130 years in prison, The Associated Press reported.

A gag order remains in effect, so no officials can speak after the verdict.

The 12-person jury, which had been sequestered during the trial, began deliberating Thursday afternoon after 17 days of testimony. The judge ordered them to deliberate from 9 am to 4 pm from Monday to Saturday until reaching a verdict.

Allen County Superior Court Judge Frances Gull gave jurors her final instructions Thursday morning, urging them to “consider the facts” before Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland presented arguments finals, guiding the jury through the evidence and testimony presented during the trial, CNN affiliate WTHR. reported.

“I think the evidence is strongly convincing that Richard Allen is ‘Bridge Guy’ and he killed Abby and Libby,” McLeland told jurors, referring to a video taken from Libby’s phone that shows a man walking across Monon High Bridge Trail. Delphi authorities have long maintained that they believe the “Bridge Boy” shown in the video is the prime suspect in the case.

McLeland showed jurors graphic photographs of the girls’ bodies, the “Bridge Guy” video that he said captured the final moments of the girls’ lives, and a recording of Allen allegedly confessing to his wife during a phone call from the prison, according to WTHR. .

“I did it,” Allen could be heard telling his wife. “I killed Abby and Libby.”

Defense attorney Brad Rozzi, in his closing arguments, said a broken timeline, false confessions and a lack of DNA or weapons evidence should lead to acquittal.

“The defense is confident that what they have heard over the past few weeks is more important than what they are hearing today,” Rozzi told jurors Thursday, according to WTHR.

The defense further argued that there is no physical evidence linking Allen to the murders and said confessions he made in the past were “false” and were due to him being held in solitary confinement for months as his mental health deteriorated.

The Delphi murder case dates back to February 13, 2017, when Abby and Libby went for a walk across the Monon High Bridge in Delphi. The two girls were reported missing after they were unable to meet Libby’s father that afternoon. The next day, their bodies were found, both dead from cuts to their throats and partially covered by sticks.

The case attracted public attention in part because of video and audio recording of a suspect taken from Libby’s smartphone. The video shows a man walking across the bridge with his hands in his pockets, and the audio includes a man’s muffled voice saying, “Guys, down the hill.” Although police circulated audio and a photograph of the video just days after the murders and identified “Bridge Boy” as their main suspect, the case was frozen for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.

Allen had apparently evaded the police notice, staying in the small town of Delphi and working at a local CVS pharmacy, until an employee digitizing information related to the investigation in September 2022 noticed that he had been placed at the crime scene. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been following the lead during the period when the girls were thought to have been murdered.

Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett said that despite the tip, Allen “fell through the cracks,” according to CNN affiliate WLFI. About a month after the tip was rediscovered, Allen was arrested after police compared an unspent cartridge found among the girls’ bodies to a gun recovered from his home during a police search.

After Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022, he was charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the charges to include two additional counts of murder.

Allen’s confessions, and his mental health when he made them, highlighted
Over the course of the trial, prosecutors highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions while incarcerated: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the principal and other employees. from prison. and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions for the jury.

Monica Wala, former head psychologist at the Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was held, testified that she initially told him he was innocent, but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.

Wala testified that Allen had told him, “I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry,” according to CNN affiliate WTHR. He said he originally planned to sexually assault the victims, but ran away when he saw a van nearby and slit the girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, he testified.

The defense has tried to paint a portrait of Allen as a mentally ill man whose fragile mental state was exacerbated by the months he spent in solitary confinement, including during the period when he confessed to the crimes. He was twice placed on suicide watch while in prison, exhibited strange behavior such as eating his own feces and hitting his head, and at one point was diagnosed with “a brief psychotic disorder,” according to Wala’s testimony.

Testifying for the defense, Deanna Dwenger, a clinical psychologist who worked for the Indiana Department of Corrections Behavioral Health, testified that Allen was diagnosed with a serious mental illness in April 2023 and a team of mental health professionals concluded that he had a ” serious disability”. according to CNN affiliate WRTV.

The defense originally hoped to introduce an “Odinism” defense: a theory that followers of Odinism, a Norse pagan religion recently adopted by white supremacists, committed the murders. But Judge Gull repeatedly rejected motions to introduce this theory.

Prosecutors focus on audio recordings and bullet found at scene
Despite Allen’s confessions, very little physical evidence links him to the case: a DNA expert who testified for the state found no DNA from Allen at the crime scene, and no DNA from Libby or Abby at items recovered from her home.

Prosecutors drew attention to the unspent .40-caliber bullet found next to the girls’ bodies, which a prosecution expert testified matched Allen’s gun. The defense cast doubt on the bullet evidence, questioned why more images of the cartridge weren’t taken and suggested the bullet could have come from a law enforcement officer’s gun, according to WRTV.

Prosecutors have also tried to link Allen to the video and audio recording of “Bridge Guy” captured on Libby’s cell phone. Indiana State Trooper Brian Harshman, who said he listened to more than 700 phone calls from Allen in prison, testified for the prosecution in his opinion, “the voice of the ‘Bridge Guy’ is the voice of Richard Allen,” according to WRTV.

“Richard Allen is ‘Bridge Guy,'” McLeland told the jury. “He kidnapped them and then murdered them.”

In response, Rozzi said witnesses did not clearly identify Allen as the man who was on the hiking trail or bridge when the teens disappeared. He also noted that Allen still lived in Delphi for more than five years after the girls were killed.

“He had every chance to run, but he didn’t because he didn’t run,” Rozzi told the jury.

ABC7 Chicago contributed to this report.

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