Indiana man gets maximum sentence after conviction in Delphi killings of 2 teens

An Indiana man convicted of the 2017 murders of two teenagers who went missing during a winter hike will face the maximum sentence of 130 years in prison, a judge ruled Friday in the case that has long cast a shadow over the teens’ small hometown. , Delphi.

According to the NBC affiliate station WTHRJudge Frances Gull sentenced Richard Allen to 65 years for the murder of each girl, the maximum term for both charges.

“These families will have to deal with their slaughter forever,” Gull said as he looked at Allen.

After a week-long trial, Allen was sentenced on November 11 in the murders of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. A jury found him guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping.

Allen faced between 45 and 130 years in prison for the murders of the Delphi teenagers, known as Abby and Libby. He was sentenced on two of the four counts of murder.

Allen, 52, also lived in Delphi. when he was arrested in October 2022More than five years after the February 2017 murders, he worked as a pharmacy technician at a pharmacy a few blocks from the county courthouse where he was later tried.

Allen’s trial came after repeated delays, a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of its public defenders and his reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court.

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The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long attracted enormous attention from true crime enthusiasts.

Allen will be sentenced Friday by the special judge who oversaw the case, Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull. Family members of German and Williams will be able to address the court during the hearing, which Gull has scheduled to take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Allen’s attorneys said in a sentencing memorandum that even in “the unlikely scenario” that Gull sentences their client to 45 years on each of two counts of murder, and orders those sentences to be served concurrently, the minimum sentence possible His client’s 45 years with good time credit would be “equivalent to 33.75 actual years in prison.”

“Richard Allen is likely to face the rest of his life in prison. Even on his best day of sentencing, Richard will be 85 years old when he is released,” they wrote.

Gull and the jurors were from Allen County in northeastern Indiana. The seven women and five men on the jury were sequestered throughout the the trial, which began on October 18 in the Carroll County seat in Delphi, the girls’ hometown of about 3,000 residents about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis.

A family member dropped the teens off on a hiking trail outside Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017. The eighth-grade students did not arrive at the agreed-upon pick-up location and were reported missing that night. Their bodies were found the next day, their throats slit, in a wooded area near an abandoned railroad trestle they had crossed.

In his closing arguments, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors that Allen, armed with a gun, forced the youths off the hiking trail and had planned to rape them before a passing pickup truck caused him to change their plans and cut their throats. McLeland said an unspent bullet was found among the teens’ bodies. “had been cycled” Allen’s .40 caliber Sig Sauer pistol.

An Indiana State Police firearms expert told jurors that her analysis linked the bullet to Allen’s gun.

McLeland said Allen was the man seen following the teens across the Monon High Bridge in a grainy cellphone video that German had recorded. And he said it was Allen’s voice that could be heard in that video telling the teens: ” going down the hill ″after crossing the bridge.

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

McLeland also noted that Allen had repeatedly confessed to the murders, in person, by telephone and in writing. In one of the recordings played for the jury, Allen could be heard telling his wife: “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

Allen’s defense argued that his confessions were unreliable because he was facing a serious mental health crisis while under the pressure and stress of being locked in solitary confinement, watched 24 hours a day, and mocked by people imprisoned with him. A psychiatrist called by the defense testified that months of isolation could make a person delusional and psychotic.

Defense attorney Bradley Rozzi said in his closing arguments that Allen was innocent. He said no witnesses explicitly identified Allen as the man seen on the hiking trail or bridge the afternoon the girls disappeared. He also said no fingerprints, DNA or forensic evidence links Allen to the crime scene.

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

Allen’s lawyers tried to argue during the trial that the girls were murdered. in a ritual sacrifice by members of a white nationalist group known as the Odinists who follow a Norse pagan religion. The judge, however, ruled against it, saying that the defense “did not present admissible evidence” of such a connection.

Gull’s Ancient Silence Order The case is expected to be lifted after Allen is sentenced, Indiana State Police spokesman Capt. Ron Galaviz said Wednesday. Authorities, prosecutors and the teens’ relatives plan to speak at a news conference shortly after Friday’s hearing ends.