The trial for the 51-year-old man accused of killing two Delphi, Indiana, teenagers in 2017 is scheduled to begin in May, more than a year after his arrest in October 2022.
Richard Allen’s trial is now scheduled to take place between May 13 and May 31, WTHR reported. The trial was previously scheduled for October 15, but Allen’s lawyers requested it be moved up.
Allen’s attorneys, Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi, filed a motion earlier this month to compel the court to schedule the trial no later than 70 days. The motion was approved.
Baldwin and Rozzi maintain their client’s innocence and have claimed in a past filing that 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German were killed by “[m]embers of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists.”
The attorneys said in the filing that two groups of Odinists, one from Delphi and the other from Rushville, Indiana, were investigated for their possible involvement in the murders. As evidence the girls were murdered as part of a ritual sacrifice, the attorneys point to ritualistic symbols allegedly found at the crime scene, which include the strange way young Libby’s body was positioned.
A March 2017 search warrant request from the FBI noted that the girls’ bodies looked as though they had been “moved and staged.”
The filing also notes that investigators didn’t further investigate the alleged ritualistic symbols left at the crime scene, which included sticks and tree branches placed on the girls’ bodies that mimicked certain Norse runes. At least one branch appeared to have been cut with an electronic device, suggesting premeditation, the defense argues. Libby’s blood was also used to paint a rune on a tree that was identified as a calling card of the pagan religious cult, they added.
The defense has also called out the police for deleting interviews with two witnesses who the attorneys say are key to the case. Even though the recordings don’t exist, there are memorialized summaries of the interviews, but Baldwin and Rozzi wanted the recordings so they could “listen to the exact spoken words” of the two men who were interviewed, “particularly the statements that the author of the document admits were not memorialized in the document,” the attorneys wrote in a filing last week.
Without the recordings, it may be more difficult for Allen’s attorneys to point out “inconsistencies or raise questions about other witnesses or other information relevant to an unbiased investigation.”
In one example provided by the defense attorneys, one of the men interviewed in 2017 said he had “never met” Abby Williams, but six years later, he told investigators that he “barely even knew” her and had “met her once.”
“It is therefore plausible that many more contradictions would be available to the defense but for the State’s intentional or negligent failure to preserve all of the evidence,” the defense attorneys wrote. “Such negligent and intentional conduct on the part of the police has also resulted in the absence of material evidence which could be exculpatory in nature.”
One of the main pieces of evidence the prosecution has against Allen is an unspent bullet casting found near the teen girls’ bodies.
“Between October 14, 2022, and October 19, 2022, the Indiana State Police Laboratory performed an analysis on Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226. The Laboratory performed a physical examination and classification of the firearm, function test, barrel and overall length measurement, test firing, ammunition component characterization, microscopic comparison, and [National Integrated Ballistic Information Network],” police said in a previously released affidavit. “The Laboratory determined the unspent round located within two feet of Victim 2’s body had been cycled through Richard M. Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226.”
Investigators learned that Allen purchased the firearm in 2001, and he told law enforcement during a voluntary interview with the Indiana State Police on October 26, 2022, that he “never allowed anyone to use or borrow” that particular weapon. At the time, however, he denied any involvement in the murders of the two teen girls but couldn’t explain how the bullet was found between their bodies.
According to Stephen Gutowski, a certified firearms instructor and reporter who founded The Reload, proving an unspent bullet came from a particular gun is not as simple as the affidavit makes it seem.
“The forensic techniques used by crime labs to match specific guns to specific bullets have come under heavy scrutiny in recent years,” Gutowski told The Daily Wire. “So, I think it’s important to examine claims like this with a healthy dose of skepticism. The idea you could match a mark on the rim of a casing to a specific gun’s extractor seems dubious to me.”
“I could see an argument that an extractor on a certain model of gun could leave a unique marking on an unspent round if the round were cycled through the firearm since the extractor may have dimensions that are different from other firearms,” he added. “However, the Sig Sauer P226 has been an incredibly popular firearm for decades, and it’s unlikely the mass-produced extractors included on each pistol would leave a marking that’s obviously distinguishable from another P226.”
The affidavit also highlights the unreliability of witness testimony. Allen said he witnessed three juvenile females while walking the trail, and those three described a man they saw walking alone, believed to be Allen. One of the girls said the man she saw was wearing “like blue jeans” and “a like really light blue jacket.” Another said the man wore a black hoodie, black jeans, and black boots. The third girl described the man as wearing a blue or black windbreaker jacket and baggy jeans.
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Witnesses also described seeing a vehicle parked at an old Child Protective Services building near the trails. One witness said he saw a purple PT Cruiser or small SUV backed up to the building. Another witness described it as possibly being a “smart” car.
Allen owned two vehicles in 2017, a 2016 black Ford Focus and a 2006 gray Ford 500, according to the affidavit. Investigators saw a car resembling Allen’s Ford Focus traveling in front of the Hoosier Harvestore store. They also suggest the witness descriptions of the vehicle “are similar in nature to a 2016 Ford Focus.” A Ford Focus is described as a compact vehicle, but it is not small or distinct enough to be confused for a “smart” car. It is also not large or distinct enough to be confused with a PT Cruiser or an SUV.
In January, Allen was hit with additional charges of murder and kidnapping.