The Delphi Murders (Final Update)

On Friday, December 20th, 2024, Richard Allen was sentenced to 130 years in prison, bringing to a close the stories of Liberty German and Abigail Williams from Delphi, Indiana…

In February of 2017, two teenage girls were killed in Delphi, Indiana. On February 13th of that year, a day before Valentine's Day, fourteen-year-old Liberty "Libby" German and thirteen-year-old Abigail "Abby" Williams were out hiking on a historic trailhead near downtown Delphi. They'd post a couple of pictures to Snapchat before disappearing, and an extensive search of the region would find their bodies the following day. Both had been violently killed, their throats slashed with a knife, and left near Deer Creek. But before their death, Libby had managed to record video and audio of the man that had likely killed them, who reportedly approached them on the Monon High Bridge and demanded they go with him "down the hill" at gunpoint. This individual was later dubbed "Bridge Guy" by authorities and the internet, and the footage obtained of him - grainy as it was - was used to develop a composite image that circulated for years.

Despite what seemed like some incredibly strong evidence, the investigation into this tragic double-murder quickly stagnated, beginning a multi-year process of authorities probing local deviants and offenders in a quest to identify "Bridge Guy." For a time, investigators even began floating a second composite image of a younger man they believed might have been the killer, which came out just a short time before I released my original episode on this story back in 2019.

Finally, in 2022, police announced that they'd identified a suspect in the crime: then fifty-year-old Richard Allen, a Delphi native that had surprisingly come forward to police very early on. In the days after the murder of Abby and Libby, Allen identified himself as someone that had been on the same historic hiking trails the same day as the crime itself, and even claimed to have been wearing an outfit eerily-similar to that seen in the "Bridge Guy" footage. But for some reason, this lead sheet had been "cleared," tucked away in a folder until 2022, when it was re-discovered by a police volunteer named Kathy Shank. Shank, a retired CPS employee that organized and evaluated roughly 14,000 tips developed by law enforcement, dug up this file during her analysis and insisted that police re-evaluate. Within weeks, Richard Allen had been arrested, charged with the murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams.

In the months that followed, Allen would insist that he was innocent through his attorneys, who began painting a portrait of him as someone that had been suffering from deteriorating mental health, but as someone who was innocent of the charges levied against him. They'd claim that he was being railroaded by desperate investigators and prosecutors, who had fumbled the early investigation. Allen's attorneys would insist that the real culprits had been an Odinist cult operating in the area, but... more on that in a bit.

In a brief update I released last month, I told you that fifty-two-year-old Richard Allen had been found guilty of Libby's and Abby's murders. At the time, though, sentencing was still weeks away so my update was rather-brief. Well, we finally know what Richard Allen's fate is, so what better time than now to back up and analyze exactly how we got here, through a trial that was extensive and frankly, a bit odd.

At the time of his arrest in 2022, Richard Allen was a Delphi native that worked at CVS, having served in the Army National Guard and living most of his life in nearby Mexico, Indiana, an unincorporated township approximately forty miles away from Delphi. At one point, he'd worked as a store manager for a Wal-Mart, but had been working at the Delphi CVS since 2013.

Soon after the Delphi murders, Allen was interviewed as a possible witness, where he gave an officer his statement about being on the historic trails the same day as Libby and Abby. Yet after this, he was not interviewed again for five years, not until police had begun to narrow in on him again following the rediscovered lead Kathy Shank had come across, buried in the police case file.

While in retrospect, Richard Allen seems like an obvious suspect, he was almost entirely forgotten about by police and seemingly "cleared" due to what some claim was essentially a clerical error. But thanks to Kathy Shank's hard work, police began digging back into Richard Allen's information, bringing him in for questioning. During that interview, investigators began making it clear that they were looking into him as a suspect, and the conversation began to grew tense. Allen was asked if he had any firearms. He did. When asked whether he'd be willing to give them to police for forensic testing, he refused. He then told investigators that they should either charge him or let him go... so he was allowed to leave, but a warrant was filed for his home and firearms later that day.

One of the firearms that Allen owned, a .40-caliber Sig Sauer model P226, which he'd purchased in 2001, was tested compared to evidence recovered at the crime scene. A unspent shell casing found underneath one of the girl's bodies was later linked to this firearm through ballistics testing. This round hadn't been fired, but had markings on it indicating that it had been cycled through the pistol. A short time later, Allen was arrested and charged with Abby's and Libby's murder.

In the months that followed, both sides began preparing their case for the inevitable trial, as Richard Allen had pleaded not guilty and was not at all willing to negotiate a potential plea deal. Regardless, the prosecution seemed assured of their own case and were similarly unwilling to negotiate for a plea.

While in custody, though, Richard Allen would reportedly confess to the crime multiple times during conversations with his family members, including what authorities would later hail as "no less than five times" to both his wife and mother. Allen's attorneys would insist that these confessions couldn't be trusted because of his declining mental state at the time.

Rather, Allen's defense attorneys began proposing an alternative theory of the case: that Abby and Libby hadn't been killed by Richard Allen, but rather by an Odinist cult operating in the region. They claimed that this cult, which was comprised by many of the early and tangential suspects or characters in this story, had killed the two girls in a sacrificial rite. As if this didn't already sound like a theory pulled straight out of the "Satanic Panic" era of the 1980s, the defense would even allege that members of this Odinist cult were prison guards overseeing Allen in custody, wearing patches on their uniforms that read "In Odin We Trust." Prosecutors would later admit that this cult angle was briefly looked into by investigators, but quickly dismissed after consulting with experts.

In 2023, Allen's attorneys were involved in a strange leaking scandal, which some of you following the case online may have heard quite a bit about. Someone linked to their office had leaked some of the evidence - namely, crime scene photos of the two girls - to someone else unrelated to the case. From there, they'd begun to leak online, and one of the figures involved with this leak had then taken their own lives. Another would face charges for the leak and Allen's lawyers would attempt to withdraw from the case ahead of the trial, resulting in a number of delays that pushed it back to 2024.

Because of the case's high profile, it wasn't going to be overseen by Carroll Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Diener, who recused himself. Instead, it'd be overseen by Allen County superior court Judge Frances Gull, who was appointed as a special judge in case back in November of 2022.

Ahead of the trial, each side presented some pre-trial motions. The defense sought to have the murder charges against Richard Allen dismissed. Those were rejected on multiple occasions. The prosecution, meanwhile, sought to prevent the defense from presenting their Odinist cult theory during the trial. That request was granted back in September of this year, just weeks ahead of the trial itself.

When the trial finally started in October, the prosecution began presenting their version of the case, which was based a lot off of information the public already knew due to the prior two years of legal disclosures. They highlighted Richard Allen's statement to police back in 2017, during which, he admitted to being on the same historic trails the same day that Libby and Abby were murdered. They also went on to show the number of similarities between Allen and "Bridge Guy," the man the two girls had interacted with right before their murders. In doing so, they not only point out Allen's physical appearance, but his voice, with the jury hearing samples of both. In the trial, Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told the jury:

"Richard Allen is 'Bridge Guy.' He kidnapped them and later murdered them."

Prosecutors linked Allen to the crime scene itself through ballistics testing, bringing up experts and presenting evidence linking one of Allen's firearms to the unspent shell casing found underneath one of the bodies. This portion of the case was centered around the fact that even though the round hadn't been fired, it had still been cycled through Allen's pistol, leaving behind ejector, extractor, and breach markings that matched it to his Sig Sauer P226.

Then, prosecutors presented what they believed to be their actual smoking gun: confessions the defendant had made in prison to his wife and mother, during which he admitted to killing the two teens. Over the roughly two years he'd been in custody, Allen made 61 incriminating statements to his family indicating guilt, including an April 2023 phone call to his wife in which he told her:

"I did it. I killed Abby. I killed Abby and Libby."

However, the defense would counter that many confessions like this one were couched in uncertainty, pointing out that right after he said that, his wife asked him whether the medication he was taking was messing with his mind. To which he responded:

"Because maybe I did it. I think I did it."

Richard Allen's attorneys would bring in mental health experts to testify about his mental state behind bars, claiming that Allen, who already had a history of mental health issues such as depression, had begun suffering psychosis behind bars. If so, his confessions would be unreliable. They would then present the jury footage of Allen in prison, including one incident where he appeared to be eating his own feces. They claimed that this altered mental state could have made him more likely to confess to a crime that they allege he hadn't committed.

Unable to present their alternative Odinist cult theory to the jury, Allen's attorneys would present a strategy of trying to poke holes in the prosecution's case. They would claim that the hairs recovered from the crime scene did not match Richard Allen. In fact, they highlighted, none of Richard Allen's DNA was found at the scene. Other than the unspent shell casing, there was no physical proof that he'd been with the girls. And when it came to the shell casing itself, Allen's attorneys tried to muddy the waters around it, claiming that the ballistics testing method used by authorities was anything but concrete. They even indicated at one point that the unspent shell casing in evidence had come from a law enforcement officer's weapon, not Allen's.

In perhaps the most intriguing part of the trial (IMO), the defense brought up a former FBI forensic examiner named Stacy Elridge to testify. She'd analyzed the data from Liberty German's phone, recovered at the crime scene underneath her body, which had filmed the infamous "Bridge Guy" footage. She claimed that according to the phone's data, it appeared like someone had plugged a headphone jack into the phone at 5:45 PM on the day of the murder, hours after the geolocation data of the phone had stopped (presumably, when they'd been killed). This had reportedly happened just moments after Libby's phone received a call, with Elridge claiming the data showed the headphone jack being plugged in within "milliseconds" of the call starting. Which, she would point out in trial:

"By plugging in the cable, you would stop sound."

Citing this data, Stacy Elridge would then claim that it appeared like the headphone jack had been disconnected at 10:32 P.M., roughly five hours later, when the overnight search for the missing teens had begun.

This information in particular was incredibly strange, but was anything but definitive. Even on the stand, Elridge was unable to state definitively whether or not this showed that a pair of headphones had been placed into the phone's headphone port, or whether it may have been something like water or mud interacting with the phone.

After presenting their dual cases over many weeks, the jury - consisting of seven women and five men - began deliberating. It would take them over nineteen hours to come to a consensus, with that finally coming down on November 11th. Richard Allen was found guilty on all counts, but would await sentencing on December 20th, about a week before this episode comes out.

On December 20th, 2024, we found out that Richard Allen was to be sentenced to 130 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed under the law. He would serve 65 years in prison for each murder, with both sentences to be served consecutively, ensuring that barring a successful appeal, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

During sentencing, it was reported that Judge Fran Gull criticized Allen for his childlike behavior during the trial, telling him:

"You rank up there with one of the most hideous cases I've ever presided over... These families will deal with your carnage forever and you sit here and roll your eyes."

Now, in the waning days of 2024, this is finally another mystery that we can lay to rest, assured that the killer of Liberty German and Abigail Williams has been brought to justice. But even then, per Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett:

"A form of justice was served, but it does not bring Abby or Libby back. These families will live every day without two of the most important people in their lives."

Speaking to this, Mike Patty, Libby's grandfather, said during a press conference last week:

"It's been almost eight years coming... If I live to make it to 80, almost 10% of my life has been spent working on this."

I can only hope that after eight long, painstaking years, the families of Abby and Libby can finally begin to rest easy, knowing that the individual that took the lives of their beloved girls is now behind bars, where he can't hurt anyone but himself.

Kathy Shank, the police volunteer that came upon the long-lost tip in the old case notes, has been hailed as a hero for her help in bringing this case to resolution. She was even thanked during the aforementioned press conference held last week, on the date of sentencing (December 20th). She was standing alongside the other law enforcement officials, and I'm glad Sheriff Tony Liggett took a moment to thank her when he said:

"The reason justice was served today was due to one person. The person that only knows how to give. She has given herself literally, for free, to this investigation in different ways. Since about March of 2017, Kathy Shank, while filing, scanning, organizing, found a tip that led us to be here today."

If you want to listen or watch the entire press conference, I'll include a link to it in the show notes. It's definitely an interesting and cathartic experience for many that have been emotionally invested in this story over the years, and in certain cases I would even describe it as a bit frustrating, but... I won't touch on that in this episode. Rather, I'd let you listen to it yourself and get your own feel for it. Rather, I'd like to end this episode with a positive focus on Kathy Shank, the unexpected hero of this grim saga, who has since turned down the $325,000 reward in this case, instead insisting that the money be used to fund the memorial softball field and scholarship foundations established in memory of Abby and Libby after their deaths. To which I just need to say... hell yeah, Kathy, you are a fucking rock star.

For now, it seems like this long saga is finally coming to an end. Richard Allen seems ready to appeal his conviction, begin to posture himself and his legal team for that uphill battle. Should anything come from that, I'll be sure to let you know.

But for now, it seems like the stories of Abby Williams and Libby German are finally resolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on December 27th, 2024

Sources and Other Reading

News Articles

BBC. (n.d.). Delphi murders case. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c140px43yy5o
NewsNation. (n.d.). Unsealed document provides new details in Delphi murders case. Retrieved from https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/unsealed-document-delphi/
NewsNation. (n.d.). Timeline of events: Richard Allen and the Delphi killings. Retrieved from https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/delphi-killings-timeline-richard-allen/
NewsNation. (n.d.). Court bail hearing for Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen. Retrieved from https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/delphi-murders-richard-allen-court-bail-hearing/
NewsNation. (n.d.). Details on the Delphi murder suspect. Retrieved from https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/delphi-murder-suspect/
FOX59. (n.d.). Attorneys for Richard Allen request client transfer, propose alternative murder theory. Retrieved from https://fox59.com/indiana-news/attorneys-for-richard-allen-want-client-moved-to-different-facility-lay-out-alternative-murder-theory/?ipid=promo-link-block1
NewsNation. (n.d.). Alternative theory: Ritualistic murder in Delphi case. Retrieved from https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/delphi-murder-suspect-richard-allen-lay-out-alternative-theory-ritualistic-murder/
FOX59. (n.d.). Delphi murders trial: Day-by-day summary of the proceedings. Retrieved from https://fox59.com/delphi-trial/delphi-murders-trial-day-by-day-summary-of-the-proceedings/
IndyStar. (2024). Delphi murders trial: Verdict, evidence, and motive against Richard Allen. Retrieved from https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2024/11/12/delphi-murders-trial-richard-allen-verdict-evidence-motive/76220314007/
CNN. (2024). Delphi murders trial verdict announced. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/us/delphi-murders-trial-verdict/index.html

Trial and Evidence Coverage

FOX59. (n.d.). “Arrest me or take me home”: Jury watches Richard Allen’s first interview. Retrieved from https://fox59.com/delphi-trial/arrest-me-or-take-me-home-jury-watches-video-richard-allens-first-interview/
FOX59. (n.d.). Jurors view additional videos of Richard Allen in custody during Delphi trial. Retrieved from https://fox59.com/delphi-trial/delphi-murders-jurors-see-additional-videos-of-richard-allen-in-custody/
FOX59. (n.d.). Expert reveals headphone jack removed from Libby’s phone in dead of night. Retrieved from https://fox59.com/news/delphi-murders-expert-says-headphone-jack-inserted-into-libbys-phone-removed-in-dead-of-night/

Investigation Highlights

WRTV. (n.d.). Meet Kathy Swank: The woman who cracked the Delphi murders case. Retrieved from https://www.wrtv.com/news/delphi/meet-kathy-swank-the-woman-who-cracked-the-delphi-murders-case