Convicted murderer Richard Allen was sentenced to 130 years in prison on Friday after a jury in Indiana found him guilty of killing two young girls on a hiking trail in 2017—though Allen’s team has indicated he will appeal the verdict.
Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County Courthouse following a hearing, Nov. 22, ... [+]
Allen received the maximum sentence for the killings and the judge told him Friday, “these families will deal with your carnage forever,” NBC News reported.
A jury—composed of seven women and five men—found Allen guilty last month on two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping related to the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German.
Allen, 52, was arrested for the killings in 2022 and pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors focused largely on confessions Allen made to his wife, a prison psychologist and correctional officers while in jail, ABC News reported, and an unspent round from a .40-caliber gun that was found near the girls’ bodies they said was from Allen’s gun.
Allen’s defense team attempted to cast doubt on the confessions by arguing he was experiencing a mental health crisis after being in solitary confinement, NBC News reported.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here.
Williams and German were on a hiking trail in Delphi—a town of about 3,000 that’s about 70 miles north of Indianapolis—in 2017 when they vanished. Their bodies were found the following day and their throats had been slit. In closing arguments, prosecutors identified Allen as “the bridge guy” in a grainy Snapchat video taken by German and found on her phone and said Allen “kidnapped them and later murdered them … He stole the youth and life away from Abby and Libby.” In the defense’s closing arguments, Allen’s attorney reportedly said no witnesses identified Allen, there was no DNA found at the scene tying him to the murders and Allen did not leave Delphi in the five years between the murders and his arrest. Allen had worked at a local CVS in Delphi, and his wife and mother were both at the reading of the verdict. TThe murder and Allen’s trial captured the attention of true-crime fans nationwide for a number of reasons, including that Allen wasn’t arrested for five years, there was an evidence leak, a gag order was put in place and Allen’s public defenders tried to leave the case and were later reappointed, the AP reported.
Allen’s arrest came after a volunteer clerk found a years-old tip that he had left shortly after the girls were murdered. He let police know he had been in the area where they were killed on the day they were killed, and the information was “inadvertently marked clear,” NBC News reported. He was arrested about a month after the tip was rediscovered.
An appeal. Outside of the courtroom after he was convicted, Allen’s wife, Kathy Allen, told reporters “this isn’t over at all,” local outlet WTHR reported. Allen’s attorneys wrote in a pre-sentencing memo that Allen “maintains his innocence.”