October 26, 2024 • 44 mins
The trial of Richard Allen has begun......We will discuss the opening statements and the first of the state's witness testimonies from the first week of trial..........
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:37):
Hello everyone, welcome back to The Victim's Voice.
I am your host, Lorelai. In this week's episode, I'm
going to go over the first week of trial and the Delphi murder
case. This case has always had an
unusual secrecy about it. Law enforcement has let out very
few details about the case over the years, especially when it
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came to what happened to the girls.
This fueled the public's curiosity and the small pieces
of information that law enforcement did decide to reveal
was leaving it every one with even more questions.
It's been 7 1/2 years since AbbyWilliams and Libby German were
murdered. It's been 2 years since Richard
Allen, a resident of Delphi and an employee of the local CVS
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Pharmacy, was arrested for theirmurders.
When it comes to this trial, things have not changed and the
secrecy that has followed this case continues.
Was such a high profile case such as this.
We're used to cameras from all the top channels that Court TV
and Law and Crime being there along with other media outlets
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recording audio. But that's not happening here.
Even though Indiana is part of apilot program that is allowing
cameras to record trials. Judge Fran Gole, who is the
presiding judge on this case, banned all forms of technology
from the courtroom. No cameras, no audio recorders,
no phones. She said this is because when
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she did allow cameras into a hearing about this case on
October 19th of 2023, the media didn't follow the court's rules.
She stated, quote, it's important Mr. Allen gets a fair
trial away from the nonsense of the media.
End Quote. She has also allowed a limited
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amount of seating for accreditedmedia and for the public.
This is has caused people to sleep overnight on the
courthouse steps in order to tryto get a seat to this highly
anticipated trial. There is also black tinting
covering the roads driving up tothe courthouse and covering the
entrance ways so that no one cansee the jurors, the witnesses,
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or Richard Allen as they enter the courthouse.
The jury in this case has also been sequestered and the
precautions that are being takenare extreme.
The jury is being housed in an unknown hotel somewhere near
Delphi. They aren't allowed to access
social media or watch any TV except for movies that the court
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has provided them to watch on a DVD player.
Court is scheduled to be in session Monday through Friday
from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and halfdays on Saturday from 9 till
noon. On Sundays.
The jury is allowed to see theirfamily members, but it is in a
location determined by the courtand a bailiff is always present.
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They are allowed to make phone calls to their family members,
but once again the calls are being monitored by a bailiff who
is standing nearby. This trial is scheduled to last
until the middle of November. This means the people on this
jury with small children don't get to see their kids in their
Halloween costumes or even go trick or treating with them.
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These people are making huge sacrifices to make sure that
these girls get the justice thatthey deserve.
After jury selection was over, Friday, October 18th, 2024 was
the day of opening statements and the first of the state's
witnesses. Before court even started,
however, cameras were confiscated from 5 or 6
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journalists outside of the courtroom or the courthouse as
they were thought to be taking pictures of the vans that drove
by that were transporting the jurors.
Before this, Judge Gole took care of some business.
She created the state's motion to exclude the two sketches of
Bridge Guy that had been released in 2017 and in 2019.
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The state felt like allowing these sketches in would confuse
the jury. Of course, the defense would
have loved to allow the men for the jury to see since neither 1
looked like Richard Allen. Allen, who's facing 2 counts of
murder and two counts of murder while kidnapping the girls
appeared in a long sleeve buttondown purple shirt and khaki
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pants with his glasses perched on his head.
His family members, including his wife Kathy Allen, sat behind
him. Nick McClellan started off the
day by trying to play a video atthe beginning of his opening
statement. However, there was a glitch and
they couldn't get the video to play.
After messing with it for about 5 minutes with no avail, he gave
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up on the video and continued onwith his opening statement.
His first words were this case is about bridge guy, a bullet,
and the brutal murder of two young girls.
He then gives a recap of what happened on February 13th of
2017. That day was an unseasonably
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warm day. The girls had a day off of
school and wanted to go to the Monen High Bridge.
Libby asked her sister Kelsey togo with them, but she had to
work that day so she said she would drive them there and drop
them off on the way there. Libby sat in the front seat and
Abby sat in the back. Libby took a selfie while in the
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car, it was a close up of her face with Abby in the background
in the back seat. This photo was submitted into
evidence. Kelsey dropped the girls off at
the Mears Farm entrance to the trails and went on her way,
never thinking that it would be the last time she would see her
sister alive. Mclellian went on talking about
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the relationship between Abby and Libby.
They were best friends, more like sisters.
Libby had a phone, but Abby did not.
However, Libby had her phone setup to where Abby could unlock
her phone with her fingerprint. He then goes on to describe the
Monin High Bridge, which is an old railroad trestle and part of
the Monin High Bridge Trail, a trail system that runs through
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Delphi. It is 60 feet above Deer Creek
and 63 feet long and is treacherous.
At that time there was no railing on the sides and the
railroad ties that the flooring of the bridge were made of were
rotted and some were even missing.
There were holes big enough for a person to fall through
straight down 60 feet to Deer Creek.
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Along the bridge there were platforms sticking out on the
sides that were about four by 6 feet.
This was where people could moveoff the bridge and stand to let
other people walk by. To cross the bridge is basically
like a rite of passage to the kids in Delphi.
Libby had crossed the bridge before, but Abby had not.
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This was her first time. Libby started across the bridge
first while Abby followed behindher.
At two O 7:00 PM, Libby turned around and took a picture of
Abby. This picture has been posted
everywhere. It shows Abby wearing blue
jeans, a maroon shirt with a Gray hoodie over it.
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Her hands are in her pockets as she looks down to watch where
she walks. The picture looks peaceful.
No one would have a clue that evil was lurking somewhere close
by. And then in a mere 6 minutes
after this picture was taken, the girls would come face to
face with that evil. Libby got to the end of the
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bridge and turned around to lookat Abby.
When she did, she noticed a man walking behind Abby that seemed
to be trying to catch up to her.Libby had a bad feeling about
this man, so following her gut, she pulled out her phone and
started recording him. This was at 2:13 PM.
The man trapped the two girls atthe end of the bridge, pulled
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out a gun and ordered them down the hill.
They obeyed and started down thehill to the left of the bridge.
The video then stopped a little after three.
Libby's dad, Derek, arrived to pick up the girls, but they
weren't there. Derek calls his mom, and the
family met him at the trails to look for the girls.
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When they still couldn't find them a little after 5:00 PM,
they called the police. Search parties looked for the
girls until around 2:00 AM that night, then resumed around 6:00
AM the next morning. That day, February 14th, at
approximately noon, the girls bodies were found upstream in a
wooded area. It was a gruesome scene.
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Libby was naked and covered in blood.
Her neck was cut in several places.
Her blood was on the ground around her and on a nearby tree.
Abby was found wearing her own underwear but wearing Libby's
jeans and hoodie. She had on shoes but no socks.
The rest of the girls clothing was found in Deer Creek.
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There was a shoe in Libby's phone found underneath Abby's
body. There was a 40 caliber
Winchester bullet found between the two girls.
Libby's phone was processed and the photos and videos were
extracted. 3 girls came forward who were on the trails that day
and said they had been sitting on a bench near the Freedom
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Bridge, which is another bridge that leads to the trails.
They claimed to have seen a man come by who was walking with a
purpose and was not friendly. McClelland said they believed
this man was bridge guy. Another witness whose name is
mentioned a lot in the opening statements is Betsy Blair.
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McClelland said she was walking to the High Bridge when she seen
a man on one of the platforms ofthe bridge.
He said they believed this man was Bridge Guy.
Another witness, Sarah Carbaugh,saw a man walking on the side of
the road around 4:00 PM on February 13th.
She said he was muddy and bloodyand looked like he had just
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slaughtered a pig. This too was believed to be
Bridge Guy. A few years had passed and the
murderer had not been caught. A new group of investigators
were reviewing the case and cameacross an old report by a
natural resource officer who hadspoken with Richard Allen in
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2017. He had told the officer that he
had been on the trails on the 13th.
He said he arrived at around 1:30 PM and left at around 3:30
PM. He said he didn't see Abby and
Libby while he was there, but hedid run into three girls.
Sheriff Liggett had said if theycould find the man who ran into
the three girls on the bench, then they would have Bridge Guy
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and here he was. They called Allen in to
interview him again. This time he told them he had
been wearing a blue or black Carhartt and jeans.
The man the girl saw and Bridge Guy was wearing the same
clothing. Law enforcement was then able to
get a search warrant for RichardAllen's home and found the
clothing he had been wearing, a gun and several knives.
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They then tested the bullet thatthey found between the girls and
it matched Alan's gun. When they brought him in again
and asked him why a bullet from his gun would be found between
the girls, he had no answer. He was then arrested.
While in jail, Alan has confessed to killing the girls
at least 61 times. He has given information that
only the killer would know. For five years the killer of
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Abby and Libby was hiding in plain sight.
McClellan said that Alan was planning on having his way with
the girls but was interrupted and so he forced them across the
stream and killed them. My only problem with this theory
is that if he was interrupted then how did he have time to
undress the girls, then redress Abby, then cover them with
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sticks? It seems if he was interrupted
that he would have been in a hurry and worried about being
caught, so I wouldn't have takenthe time to do all the extra
stuff that he did. That was the end of Mcclellan's
opening statement. Next, Baldwin gave the opening
statement for the defense. He started out by saying that
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Richard Allen is completely innocent and that the jury will
have reasonable doubt because ofthe evidence and the lack of
evidence. He assured the jury that the
defense wanted the truth to comeout in this trial for the girls
and for their families. He stated that the investigation
was messed up from the beginningand still was messed up all the
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way to a couple of days before the trial started.
This was in reference to the hair that was found in Abby's
hand that had a roof in it. No one had even heard about this
hair until Richard Allen's lawyers brought it up during
jury selection. Apparently law enforcement has
had this hair for seven years and had never done anything with
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it until they were called out bythe defense.
It has been tested to see if it was Richard Allen's, which it's
not. All they know is that it belongs
to a female. They believe that it belongs to
a family member of Libby, which does make sense since Abby had
borrowed a hoodie from Kelsey that day that they went to the
trails and had stayed at Libby'shouse the night before.
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But they haven't actually testedit to find out for sure.
In fact, on Wednesday the 16th of October, 2 days before
opening statements began, they collected DNA from Becky, Patty
and Kelsey to test against the hair.
They had already collected theirDNA at the beginning of the
investigation, so why do they have to collect it again unless
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the first time it was never submitted?
And why had this hair not been tested in seven years?
Baldwin talked about other things that had been messed up
over the years in the investigation.
Evidence was lost. Key witness interviews were
gone. There were no names of the
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people that were interviewed. More evidence in interviews were
lost between April 29th and June2nd of 2017.
Then during the middle of the investigation, there was a turf
war between law enforcement and the FBI, and they kicked the FBI
out of the investigation, even though the FBI had been
assisting with extracting data from Libby's phone at the time.
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They kicked them out before theygot to discuss the FBI's
findings. Baldwin then held a phone up to
show the jury and said he believed the truth would come
out in phone data. Because that kind of evidence
doesn't lie and it's accurate and reliable.
He told the jury when they hear what was on Libby's phone, the
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state's case was going to fall apart and that they would have
to change their theory. When this evidence came out, he
talked about some guys from Idaho State Police who had been
in charge of analyzing phone data from Libby's phone, but
that they were I'll equipped. Baldwin then reiterated that the
state believed Abby and Libby were dead no later than by 4:00
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PM on Monday, February 13th of 2017.
That they were never moved, thatthe phone never moved, that it
was underneath Abby's body the whole time from 4:00 PM until
the next day at noon. Also according to the state,
Allen arrived at the trails and parked at the CPS lot at 1:30 PM
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where his car was parked until almost 4:00 PM, and once he
left, he never came back to the crime scene.
Baldwin then states that Allen was never on the trails with
Abby and Libby. Witnesses described Bridge Guy
as being around 5 foot 11 inches.
And this definitely wouldn't be Richard Allen.
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He is really short. According to his attorneys, he
is 5 foot 4 inches and accordingto the jail records he is 55.
Baldwin goes on to say that Allen actually arrived to the
trails around 12:00 or 12:30 andwas gone by 130 before the girls
even got there. But Richard Allen is the one
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that told the resource officer that he got there at 1:30 and
left at 3:30. That's not the state making this
up and saying this. This is what Richard Allen said
in his first interview. So why is he now changing times?
Baldwin then talked about the witness Betsy Blair again, who
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said she drove by the CPS building at around 2:15 PM and
the only car sitting there was an old Mercury Comet.
She said she noticed it because her dad used to have the same
type of car at the time. Richard Allen drove a 2014 Ford
Focus. Baldwin said that the girls came
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onto the trail right after BetsyBlair and had passed her as she
came back from the bridge. He then talked about the girls
on the bridge and the abduction,which he agreed with the state
when it came to all of that, including the times, which he
had to agree with because the proof was on the video on
Libby's phone. He then talked about the video
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on Libby's phone. He said that you couldn't really
see much of the surroundings, such as the water on the bridge.
He said you hear a voice tellingthe girls to go down the hill,
but the man in the video's mouthdidn't move when it was said,
suggesting that there was another person there.
He stated that when the girls went left down the incline, they
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would have ran into an access Rd. at the bottom that went
under the bridge. It led to the home of a man
named Brad Weber, but other carswere known to use it.
He suggested that there could have been a car waiting on this
access Rd. that picked up the girls.
He said According to the phone records, Libby's phone continued
to receive texts until 5:44 PM, then the phone lost connection
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with the tower until 4:33 AM when it reconnected with the
tower and 12 messages were able to come through.
Baldwin also stated that data would show that human hands
handled the phone after 4:00 PM when the state says Richard
Allen was already gone from the scene.
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At 10:00 PM on February 13th of 2017 when everyone was out
looking for the girls, investigators contacted ISP and
said the phone was not working or that it was out of the area.
When it was found the next day, it was in working order, so
therefore it had to be out of the area.
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Baldwin also said evidence wouldshow that if the girls were at
the location that they were found in on the 13th, they would
have been found that night. He said a grid search was done
and that there were flashlights seen in that area during the
search. Also, a lot of the searchers
were searching along the Creek bank because they thought that
maybe the girls had fallen off the bridge into the water.
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So why is it that no one saw their clothing in the Creek
while they were searching on the13th?
He also said that from where thegirls were found, people on the
bridge could hear. And that there were four people
on the bridge at the time the murders were thought to have
taken place. So why didn't no one hear any
screaming or any other noises? He then went on to talk about
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Richard Allen's confessions. He said that when Allen was
first taken into custody, he wasin a fragile mental state and
that the conditions that he was kept in, such as being in a
maximum security prison in solitary confinement made his
mental state worse. He told the jury that they would
be watching some videos that would show the conditions he was
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in and that they were very upsetting.
His fragile mental state was shown two weeks after his arrest
when he told his uncle not to send him any money or to get him
a lawyer. He said that he was just going
to admit to murdering the girls so that his family didn't have
to suffer. Six months later is when the
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confession started, but allegedly not all of his
confessions fit what happened tothe girls, or were even about
the girls for that matter. He had said that he had shot the
girls in the back, which we now know the girls weren't shot.
He said he killed them with a box cutter, which we also know
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isn't true. He then said he killed his
family and his grandkids, which his family is alive and well and
he doesn't even have any grandkids.
This leads me to wonder about the details he told Elle law
enforcement that they said only the killer would know.
Was it something very specific that he knew or was it something
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that he could have guessed? I'd be curious to see what these
details are. Baldwin next talked about the
magic bullet that law enforcement found on the ground.
He said there was no video or photos of it being removed from
the scene, only one photo of it in place and then in the lab.
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He said that law enforcement in that area was known to use 40
caliber ammo and more specifically Sig Sauer guns, but
no one bothered to ask an officer if he had dropped a
bullet and no officer's guns were ever tested to see if the
bullet came from 1 of theirs. Another interesting fact was
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that Brad Weber, the guy who lived off the Access Rd. under
the bridge, also owned a Sig Sauer gun that he kept in his
vehicle. It was tested to see if it
matched the bullet found at the crime scene and it came back as
not being able to be excluded. How can they say that the bullet
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absolutely came from Richard Allen's gun if there is another
gun that cannot be excluded fromcarrying that bullet?
Another interesting fact that Baldwin made was that the bullet
at the scene had never been fired.
It was an unspent round, but it did have sufficient markings on
it so that it was being able to use for a comparison.
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They then took a pristine bulletand cycled it through Aled's
gun, but it didn't make sufficient markings to compare
it to the bullet that was found at the scene.
So they then fired the pristine bullet through the gun to get
more markings, then compared themarkings on the shell casing to
the bullet. In Baldwin's words, by doing
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this, they were comparing applesand oranges, not apples and
apples. Baldwin said when the jury
looked at a photo showing the shell casing in the bullet, they
will be able to see with their naked eyes that they don't
match. He then went back to the fact
that the timeline doesn't add upwith what the state says
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happened. He stated that Betsy Blair saw
the guy that they assumed his bridge guy from a distance of 50
feet. She also said he was in his 20s,
maybe 30, and had brown fluffy hair.
Richard Allen always kept his hair in a short military cut.
He talked about the witness Sarah called Carl Bog, who seen
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the guy on the road. He said her witness statements
were unreliable and that in 2017she said the man was wearing a
tan jacket and was muddy. But then in 2019, after the
Bridge Guy video was released, that's when she said that he was
wearing a blue jacket and lookedlike he had slaughtered a pig.
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In closing, Baldwin said that there was none of Allen's DNA
found at the crime scene. Which killing two people, the
way they were killed would be really hard to not leave some of
your DNA somewhere. He states that they had no
social media connection, but we know who did have a social media
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connection with Libby, King and Klein.
I just can't help but think he was still involved in some way.
Baldwin then states that it is thought that there were two
different knives used in the killings, 1 was serrated and one
wasn't. Another reason that they think
there was more than one person involved.
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Baldwin concluded his opening statement by saying that Mister
Allen is really innocent. The state then called their
first witnesses to the stand. These were members of the girls
families. Becky Patty, Libby's grandma,
took the stand first, then Kelsey Libby's sister, then
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Derek Libby's dad, and last was Anna Williams, Abby's mom.
All of them talked about what great girls Abby and Libby were.
Becky said Libby was smart, active and had a lot of friends,
played four different sports andwas in the band.
She loved watching crime shows and wanted to work in forensics
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one day. She had a good head on her
shoulders and always trusted hergut.
She was always forgetting thingsshe needed for sports or one of
her other activities, so her dadsaid he spent a lot of time
driving to bring her something that she had forgot.
Becky talked about how the girlshad come to live with her when
Libby was just three years old. Her son Derek, the girl's dad,
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also lived with them. She said the morning of the
13th, Abby and Libby had filed some paperwork for her and she
had paid them for it. The last thing she said to Libby
was as they were leaving to go to the trails, she told her to
take a jacket and Libby said, Grandma, I'll be OK.
Becky's testimony was heartbreaking and it was clear
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that she was still grieving. She talked about going to the
trails and looking for the girlsand how when it started to get
dark, they knew they needed to call the police because Libby
was scared of the dark. Becky tried calling Anna
Williams, Abby's mom, but couldn't get a hold of her.
She and her husband might call the police while she drove to
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Anna's house. Abby's grandfather was there and
told Becky that Anna was at work.
As Becky got back in her car, Anna called her.
Becky told her that they couldn't find the girls and they
met at the police station. Becky had made posts about the
missing girls on social media, so it wasn't long before there
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were hundreds of people searching the woods for the
girls. The official search went on
until around 2:00 AM, though some people stayed in the woods
all night. The next morning at around 6:00
AM, everyone met at the fire station and were put into groups
to do a grid search. Becky then talked about the
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moment she heard that the girls were found.
She had no clue that they were deceased.
She had been searching a field close to their house when her
friend ran up and said they werefound.
They jumped in the car and droveto the Mirror's trailhead.
Becky ran up to a fireman and told him to take her to Libby,
but he told her no. Then she seen her sister, she
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was crying. Becky ran up to her and said hey
they found them but her sister wouldn't say anything.
Mike then came over and sat Becky in the truck while he went
to talk to someone. Becky was confused as to why no
one was talking to her or takingher to Libby.
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Then she saw the coroner's van, and she knew.
Law enforcement called the families to the fire station to
tell them officially. Since Libby's death, Kelsey
Siebert, formerly German, has graduated college, gotten
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married, has a little girl and another on the way.
During her testimony, she told pretty much the same story as
Becky. She talked about how her grandma
had given her a car when she turned 16 and she would help
drive her sister and her friendsaround wherever they needed to
go. She said she had been with Libby
the first time she crossed the Monan High Bridge within the
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months leading up to the murders.
She talked about how scary it was and how she went across on
her hands and knees because eventhough she was afraid, she
didn't want Libby to go alone. She talked about the ride to the
trails that day that the girls were murdered.
On the way there, Libby was taking selfies and being silly.
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They were listening to music andsinging and laughing.
They had no idea was what was about to come.
Kelsey said she had no reason toworry about her sister and Abby
going to the trails and it had always been a place that they
felt safe. She was at her boyfriend's house
getting ready to go to work whenshe got the call from her
grandma that the girls were missing.
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She went to the trails to help everyone search.
Derek Libby's father talked about how Libby had called him
that day and asked if he would pick her and Abby up from the
trails, and he told her it wouldbe a couple of hours before he
was done with his work. On his way there, he called
Libby's phone and got no answer.Once he got there, he called and
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called, walked the trails, askedpeople he saw if they had seen
the girls. Then he went back to the car and
tried to call Libby again, then walked the trails again.
Finally, close to 4:00, he called his mom and told her what
was going on. They knew that Libby was
responsible, it would always be where she was supposed to be and
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she always answered her phone. Anna Williams, Abby's mom, took
the stand next. She had moved to Indiana from
Northern Michigan in 2006 when Abby was only about 3 years old.
Abby was her only child and theywere very close.
Anna worked part time as a bartender at a local restaurant
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in Delphi called The Doc, but her main job was in healthcare.
She went on to describe Abby as smart and reserved.
She wouldn't go out of her way to talk to most people.
She hung around with a pretty small group of friends.
She took part in volleyball and in band.
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She was kind, helpful, smart andquiet.
Anna said she was a very shy child and she used to have to
remind Abby to keep eye contact while she talked to people.
Anna said that Abby had a small group of friends and did fair in
school. Anna worked a lot, so there
wasn't time for Abby to have sleepover overs or for Anna to
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drive her and her friends places.
She also missed a lot of events that Abby had in the evening due
to her work schedule, so she didn't get to know Abby's
friends very well. She did know Libby since Abby
had gone on vacation with Libby's family not long before
the murders. Abby usually stayed with her
grandfather while her mom worked, but on the night of the
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12th, she stayed the night at Libby's.
Abby used Libby's phone to call Anna on the 13th to see if she
could spend the afternoon with Libby.
Anna told her she wouldn't be able to pick her up until she
got off of work that evening around 8, and Becky said that it
was OK with her if Abby stayed until then.
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Baldwin didn't do any extensive cross examining of the family
members. His main question to each of
them was would the girls fight back if someone was attacking
them and how loud their voices were.
He was trying to prove that there was no way that Richard
Allen alone could have murdered both girls and if they had been
attacked and murdered where theywere found and someone on the
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bridge should have been able to hear them, I believe he could
have done it alone. He had a gun that he pulled on
them while they were still on the bridge.
He didn't shoot the gun, but he most likely used it to scare
them into doing what he said. The girls were probably too
scared to try to resist or run away after Anna.
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The state said that they had no one else scheduled to testify
that day and Judge Gaul was pissed.
She said that she expected them to use time wisely and to have
some consideration for the jury in their time.
The State was able to find Deputy Mitchell Catron, who had
been on duty the day the girls went missing, and responded to
(33:45):
the call at 5:15 PM. He drove down the Access Rd.
under the bridge and talked to Brad Weber.
McClellan asked if Weber was sweating, if he was disheveled
or covered in blood, to which Catron answered no to each
question. Catron said he searched the
property of Weber but found nothing, even though the defense
(34:05):
accused him of not checking 2 outbuildings on the property.
Baldwin asked Catron what made him go to Weber's to search and
he said that he had been there before for criminal mischief
relating to some chicken coops. Catron wasn't on the trails long
as his shift ended and he went home for the next year.
(34:25):
He was put on the tip line but said he didn't investigate.
Any tips on Richard Allen. After Catron's testimony they
answered 2 jury questions. One was is it common for people
walking the trail to get to the bridge and turn around, which
the answer to that was unknown. The other question was is there
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a trail to go down to the Creek instead of across the bridge?
The answer to that question was no.
Richard Allen arrived in court Saturday morning at 9:00 AM for
the second day of testimony wearing a blue striped button
down shirt, khaki pants and glasses.
He was seen looking back at his mother and his wife.
(35:08):
Abby and Libby's families were also in attendance.
The second day started with Steve Mullins, Delphi's Chief of
police, in 2017 and he was on duty the day of the murders.
Mullen described February 13th of 2017 as routine and spoke
(35:31):
about hearing radio traffic and receiving texts about Libby
German and Abby Williams disappearance.
During his testimony, Mullen stood up and approached a map of
the trail on the TV and pointed out where Abby and Libby
entered. After learning the girls did not
return, Mullen said he contactedDelphi Middle School and spoke
(35:51):
with the search party. Mullen did not participate in
the search but said he stayed behind a dispatch.
Mullen said when he left the dispatch center at 2:00 AM on
February 14th, he told the courthe did not believe anyone had
hurt the girls and believed theywould return home.
He returned to work at 7:30 AM on February 14th and met with
(36:17):
the search party. He said he did not direct them
where to go. Allen's attorney, Andrew
Baldwin, objected to Mullen's testimony about the search,
saying that Mullen only knew thewhereabouts of the search
because he was at dispatch. Mullen continued his testimony
by describing when he heard the girls bodies were found and
(36:40):
noting on the courtroom map where they were located.
He said he met with Abby and Libby's families around 2:00 PM
to say they had found bodies andwere working on identification.
Mullen said he then learned of astore near the start of the
trail, the Hoosier Harvest store, having security cameras.
The store's camera pointed towards 300 N and West, and he
(37:04):
reviewed footage from 8:00 AM to6:00 PM on February 13th of
2017. He also discussed drone footage
taken of the trail on February 13th of 2024, which state
prosecutor Nick Mcglelan said was to represent and compare
what the two scenes look like 7 years apart.
(37:27):
McClellan asked Mullen what kindof people would be seen on the
bridge in 2017, which he answered Teenagers and younger
people. Baldwin then began questioning
Mullen, starting by asking aboutimprovements made on the trail
since 2017. Judge Fran Gold chimed in,
(37:49):
asking about the thought processbehind searching for the girls
downstream. Mullins said it was in case the
girls might have fallen off the bridge.
Baldwin asked if Mullen went to the scene and Mullins said he
did not. Mullen described to the court
where the bodies were found in relation to Morning Heights
(38:09):
Cemetery, which is near the trail.
He said he went to Weber's property on February 27th of
2024, but did not elaborate. Gaul asked if it would take 9
minutes to walk from the trailhead to the end of the
bridge, and Mullen said about the second person to testify
(38:32):
Saturday was Jake Johns, a Delphi resident who works at a
propane company. John spotted Liberty Germans tie
Dye shirt in Deer Creek during the search on the 14th.
Johns said he knew Libby's family and his wife worked with
Libby's grandmother, Becky. However, he was not familiar
with Abby Williams or her family.
(38:55):
John said that he joined the search for the girls on February
14th and he knew that they wouldbe looking for a tie dye shirt
that belonged to Libby. He walked four hours around the
area and to the High Bridge. That's when he spotted the shirt
in the water. He and a firefighter standing
nearby tried to contact police to report the shirt, but John
(39:18):
said they could not get a hold of anyone.
The firefighter went to the shirt himself and also located a
pair of black Nike shoes that later were found to belong to
Libby. Soon after, a person living on
the other side of the Creek was called to come down to the
search area. Brad, German and Kelsey also
arrived. That's when Johns said another
(39:40):
member of the search party said quote UN quote, we have found
the bodies. Johns said he did not personally
see the bodies. The defense began questioning
Johns, only learning that Johns saw footprints on February 14th
on an access Rd. near Deer Creek.
(40:02):
After being questioned by the prosecution and defense, again,
nothing new was said. No further questions were asked.
The last person to testify on Saturday was Pat Brown, the man
who found the girls bodies. Brown told the jury he'd known
Libby German's grandfather, MikePaddy, since high school and
(40:26):
also knew Libby. He said he was at home eating
dinner and watching TV when his wife told him about Libby and
Abby and how they had went missing.
Brown said he called a man namedTom Mears for help and went out
in the dark to search for the girls he asked.
He said he stopped at a man named Ron Logan's house to ask
(40:47):
if he saw the girls, then continued to the bridge to talk
to search party members. And if you remember right, Ron
Logan is the man who was a suspect early on and his
property is where the girls werefound.
But I believe Ron Logan died a couple years ago, a few years
(41:09):
ago. So afterwards, Pat drove to the
nearby Mears property and met with Tom to look for Libby and
Abby. Brown said he called off work on
February 14th to help with the search efforts.
He and Mears drove into town where Brown said Delphi Police
(41:29):
Chief Steve Mullen was quote UN quote heading the search up.
However, Mullins said in his testimony earlier that he did
not head up the search. So there is a little
discrepancy. Brown picked up his daughter
around 11:00 AM on February 14thand soon received a call from
(41:52):
Mears to say they'd found Libby's shirt along Deer Creek.
Brown went to the north side of the Creek and found the girls
bodies on the way. Brown said he thought they were
mannequins at 1st and became emotional as he told the court.
We found them. Melissa, a relative of the
(42:15):
Patty's, was with Brown when they spotted the girls.
She ran off to call the police. Brown noted on the courtroom map
where he found the girls and said he got within 5 feet of the
bodies. Police arrived before Brown left
the scene. Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin
questioned Brown, focusing on the sound of voices, what could
(42:38):
be heard, and if Brown had cell service while in the woods.
Judge Gole also asked questions about Brown's cell phone
provider, how long it took for police to arrive after they
found the girls, and how long ittook for the scene to be
secured. Brown answered that officers
arrived within 5 minutes of being called and it didn't take
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long at all for the area to be secured.
Saturday's court session ended at noon after the jury was shown
a photograph of Libby's shirt and shoes in the muddy water of
Deer Creek. I will be doing a recap every
week, so come back next week to hear what happened in the first
(43:19):
full week of the trial. Until then, peace out.
Hello everyone, welcome back to The Victim's Voice.
I am your host, Lorelai. In this week's episode, I'm
going to go over the first week of trial and the Delphi murder
case. This case has always had an
unusual secrecy about it. Law enforcement has let out very
few details about the case over the years, especially when it
(00:59):
came to what happened to the girls.
This fueled the public's curiosity and the small pieces
of information that law enforcement did decide to reveal
was leaving it every one with even more questions.
It's been 7 1/2 years since AbbyWilliams and Libby German were
murdered. It's been 2 years since Richard
Allen, a resident of Delphi and an employee of the local CVS
(01:23):
Pharmacy, was arrested for theirmurders.
When it comes to this trial, things have not changed and the
secrecy that has followed this case continues.
Was such a high profile case such as this.
We're used to cameras from all the top channels that Court TV
and Law and Crime being there along with other media outlets
(01:45):
recording audio. But that's not happening here.
Even though Indiana is part of apilot program that is allowing
cameras to record trials. Judge Fran Gole, who is the
presiding judge on this case, banned all forms of technology
from the courtroom. No cameras, no audio recorders,
no phones. She said this is because when
(02:06):
she did allow cameras into a hearing about this case on
October 19th of 2023, the media didn't follow the court's rules.
She stated, quote, it's important Mr. Allen gets a fair
trial away from the nonsense of the media.
End Quote. She has also allowed a limited
(02:28):
amount of seating for accreditedmedia and for the public.
This is has caused people to sleep overnight on the
courthouse steps in order to tryto get a seat to this highly
anticipated trial. There is also black tinting
covering the roads driving up tothe courthouse and covering the
entrance ways so that no one cansee the jurors, the witnesses,
(02:50):
or Richard Allen as they enter the courthouse.
The jury in this case has also been sequestered and the
precautions that are being takenare extreme.
The jury is being housed in an unknown hotel somewhere near
Delphi. They aren't allowed to access
social media or watch any TV except for movies that the court
(03:12):
has provided them to watch on a DVD player.
Court is scheduled to be in session Monday through Friday
from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and halfdays on Saturday from 9 till
noon. On Sundays.
The jury is allowed to see theirfamily members, but it is in a
location determined by the courtand a bailiff is always present.
(03:34):
They are allowed to make phone calls to their family members,
but once again the calls are being monitored by a bailiff who
is standing nearby. This trial is scheduled to last
until the middle of November. This means the people on this
jury with small children don't get to see their kids in their
Halloween costumes or even go trick or treating with them.
(03:55):
These people are making huge sacrifices to make sure that
these girls get the justice thatthey deserve.
After jury selection was over, Friday, October 18th, 2024 was
the day of opening statements and the first of the state's
witnesses. Before court even started,
however, cameras were confiscated from 5 or 6
(04:16):
journalists outside of the courtroom or the courthouse as
they were thought to be taking pictures of the vans that drove
by that were transporting the jurors.
Before this, Judge Gole took care of some business.
She created the state's motion to exclude the two sketches of
Bridge Guy that had been released in 2017 and in 2019.
(04:38):
The state felt like allowing these sketches in would confuse
the jury. Of course, the defense would
have loved to allow the men for the jury to see since neither 1
looked like Richard Allen. Allen, who's facing 2 counts of
murder and two counts of murder while kidnapping the girls
appeared in a long sleeve buttondown purple shirt and khaki
(05:01):
pants with his glasses perched on his head.
His family members, including his wife Kathy Allen, sat behind
him. Nick McClellan started off the
day by trying to play a video atthe beginning of his opening
statement. However, there was a glitch and
they couldn't get the video to play.
After messing with it for about 5 minutes with no avail, he gave
(05:24):
up on the video and continued onwith his opening statement.
His first words were this case is about bridge guy, a bullet,
and the brutal murder of two young girls.
He then gives a recap of what happened on February 13th of
2017. That day was an unseasonably
(05:44):
warm day. The girls had a day off of
school and wanted to go to the Monen High Bridge.
Libby asked her sister Kelsey togo with them, but she had to
work that day so she said she would drive them there and drop
them off on the way there. Libby sat in the front seat and
Abby sat in the back. Libby took a selfie while in the
(06:04):
car, it was a close up of her face with Abby in the background
in the back seat. This photo was submitted into
evidence. Kelsey dropped the girls off at
the Mears Farm entrance to the trails and went on her way,
never thinking that it would be the last time she would see her
sister alive. Mclellian went on talking about
(06:27):
the relationship between Abby and Libby.
They were best friends, more like sisters.
Libby had a phone, but Abby did not.
However, Libby had her phone setup to where Abby could unlock
her phone with her fingerprint. He then goes on to describe the
Monin High Bridge, which is an old railroad trestle and part of
the Monin High Bridge Trail, a trail system that runs through
(06:50):
Delphi. It is 60 feet above Deer Creek
and 63 feet long and is treacherous.
At that time there was no railing on the sides and the
railroad ties that the flooring of the bridge were made of were
rotted and some were even missing.
There were holes big enough for a person to fall through
straight down 60 feet to Deer Creek.
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Along the bridge there were platforms sticking out on the
sides that were about four by 6 feet.
This was where people could moveoff the bridge and stand to let
other people walk by. To cross the bridge is basically
like a rite of passage to the kids in Delphi.
Libby had crossed the bridge before, but Abby had not.
(07:33):
This was her first time. Libby started across the bridge
first while Abby followed behindher.
At two O 7:00 PM, Libby turned around and took a picture of
Abby. This picture has been posted
everywhere. It shows Abby wearing blue
jeans, a maroon shirt with a Gray hoodie over it.
(07:54):
Her hands are in her pockets as she looks down to watch where
she walks. The picture looks peaceful.
No one would have a clue that evil was lurking somewhere close
by. And then in a mere 6 minutes
after this picture was taken, the girls would come face to
face with that evil. Libby got to the end of the
(08:15):
bridge and turned around to lookat Abby.
When she did, she noticed a man walking behind Abby that seemed
to be trying to catch up to her.Libby had a bad feeling about
this man, so following her gut, she pulled out her phone and
started recording him. This was at 2:13 PM.
The man trapped the two girls atthe end of the bridge, pulled
(08:36):
out a gun and ordered them down the hill.
They obeyed and started down thehill to the left of the bridge.
The video then stopped a little after three.
Libby's dad, Derek, arrived to pick up the girls, but they
weren't there. Derek calls his mom, and the
family met him at the trails to look for the girls.
(08:56):
When they still couldn't find them a little after 5:00 PM,
they called the police. Search parties looked for the
girls until around 2:00 AM that night, then resumed around 6:00
AM the next morning. That day, February 14th, at
approximately noon, the girls bodies were found upstream in a
wooded area. It was a gruesome scene.
(09:19):
Libby was naked and covered in blood.
Her neck was cut in several places.
Her blood was on the ground around her and on a nearby tree.
Abby was found wearing her own underwear but wearing Libby's
jeans and hoodie. She had on shoes but no socks.
The rest of the girls clothing was found in Deer Creek.
(09:40):
There was a shoe in Libby's phone found underneath Abby's
body. There was a 40 caliber
Winchester bullet found between the two girls.
Libby's phone was processed and the photos and videos were
extracted. 3 girls came forward who were on the trails that day
and said they had been sitting on a bench near the Freedom
(10:02):
Bridge, which is another bridge that leads to the trails.
They claimed to have seen a man come by who was walking with a
purpose and was not friendly. McClelland said they believed
this man was bridge guy. Another witness whose name is
mentioned a lot in the opening statements is Betsy Blair.
(10:22):
McClelland said she was walking to the High Bridge when she seen
a man on one of the platforms ofthe bridge.
He said they believed this man was Bridge Guy.
Another witness, Sarah Carbaugh,saw a man walking on the side of
the road around 4:00 PM on February 13th.
She said he was muddy and bloodyand looked like he had just
(10:44):
slaughtered a pig. This too was believed to be
Bridge Guy. A few years had passed and the
murderer had not been caught. A new group of investigators
were reviewing the case and cameacross an old report by a
natural resource officer who hadspoken with Richard Allen in
(11:06):
2017. He had told the officer that he
had been on the trails on the 13th.
He said he arrived at around 1:30 PM and left at around 3:30
PM. He said he didn't see Abby and
Libby while he was there, but hedid run into three girls.
Sheriff Liggett had said if theycould find the man who ran into
the three girls on the bench, then they would have Bridge Guy
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and here he was. They called Allen in to
interview him again. This time he told them he had
been wearing a blue or black Carhartt and jeans.
The man the girl saw and Bridge Guy was wearing the same
clothing. Law enforcement was then able to
get a search warrant for RichardAllen's home and found the
clothing he had been wearing, a gun and several knives.
(11:52):
They then tested the bullet thatthey found between the girls and
it matched Alan's gun. When they brought him in again
and asked him why a bullet from his gun would be found between
the girls, he had no answer. He was then arrested.
While in jail, Alan has confessed to killing the girls
at least 61 times. He has given information that
only the killer would know. For five years the killer of
(12:16):
Abby and Libby was hiding in plain sight.
McClellan said that Alan was planning on having his way with
the girls but was interrupted and so he forced them across the
stream and killed them. My only problem with this theory
is that if he was interrupted then how did he have time to
undress the girls, then redress Abby, then cover them with
(12:38):
sticks? It seems if he was interrupted
that he would have been in a hurry and worried about being
caught, so I wouldn't have takenthe time to do all the extra
stuff that he did. That was the end of Mcclellan's
opening statement. Next, Baldwin gave the opening
statement for the defense. He started out by saying that
(13:00):
Richard Allen is completely innocent and that the jury will
have reasonable doubt because ofthe evidence and the lack of
evidence. He assured the jury that the
defense wanted the truth to comeout in this trial for the girls
and for their families. He stated that the investigation
was messed up from the beginningand still was messed up all the
(13:22):
way to a couple of days before the trial started.
This was in reference to the hair that was found in Abby's
hand that had a roof in it. No one had even heard about this
hair until Richard Allen's lawyers brought it up during
jury selection. Apparently law enforcement has
had this hair for seven years and had never done anything with
(13:43):
it until they were called out bythe defense.
It has been tested to see if it was Richard Allen's, which it's
not. All they know is that it belongs
to a female. They believe that it belongs to
a family member of Libby, which does make sense since Abby had
borrowed a hoodie from Kelsey that day that they went to the
trails and had stayed at Libby'shouse the night before.
(14:07):
But they haven't actually testedit to find out for sure.
In fact, on Wednesday the 16th of October, 2 days before
opening statements began, they collected DNA from Becky, Patty
and Kelsey to test against the hair.
They had already collected theirDNA at the beginning of the
investigation, so why do they have to collect it again unless
(14:30):
the first time it was never submitted?
And why had this hair not been tested in seven years?
Baldwin talked about other things that had been messed up
over the years in the investigation.
Evidence was lost. Key witness interviews were
gone. There were no names of the
(14:50):
people that were interviewed. More evidence in interviews were
lost between April 29th and June2nd of 2017.
Then during the middle of the investigation, there was a turf
war between law enforcement and the FBI, and they kicked the FBI
out of the investigation, even though the FBI had been
assisting with extracting data from Libby's phone at the time.
(15:14):
They kicked them out before theygot to discuss the FBI's
findings. Baldwin then held a phone up to
show the jury and said he believed the truth would come
out in phone data. Because that kind of evidence
doesn't lie and it's accurate and reliable.
He told the jury when they hear what was on Libby's phone, the
(15:38):
state's case was going to fall apart and that they would have
to change their theory. When this evidence came out, he
talked about some guys from Idaho State Police who had been
in charge of analyzing phone data from Libby's phone, but
that they were I'll equipped. Baldwin then reiterated that the
state believed Abby and Libby were dead no later than by 4:00
(16:01):
PM on Monday, February 13th of 2017.
That they were never moved, thatthe phone never moved, that it
was underneath Abby's body the whole time from 4:00 PM until
the next day at noon. Also according to the state,
Allen arrived at the trails and parked at the CPS lot at 1:30 PM
(16:24):
where his car was parked until almost 4:00 PM, and once he
left, he never came back to the crime scene.
Baldwin then states that Allen was never on the trails with
Abby and Libby. Witnesses described Bridge Guy
as being around 5 foot 11 inches.
And this definitely wouldn't be Richard Allen.
(16:47):
He is really short. According to his attorneys, he
is 5 foot 4 inches and accordingto the jail records he is 55.
Baldwin goes on to say that Allen actually arrived to the
trails around 12:00 or 12:30 andwas gone by 130 before the girls
even got there. But Richard Allen is the one
(17:10):
that told the resource officer that he got there at 1:30 and
left at 3:30. That's not the state making this
up and saying this. This is what Richard Allen said
in his first interview. So why is he now changing times?
Baldwin then talked about the witness Betsy Blair again, who
(17:31):
said she drove by the CPS building at around 2:15 PM and
the only car sitting there was an old Mercury Comet.
She said she noticed it because her dad used to have the same
type of car at the time. Richard Allen drove a 2014 Ford
Focus. Baldwin said that the girls came
(17:51):
onto the trail right after BetsyBlair and had passed her as she
came back from the bridge. He then talked about the girls
on the bridge and the abduction,which he agreed with the state
when it came to all of that, including the times, which he
had to agree with because the proof was on the video on
Libby's phone. He then talked about the video
(18:14):
on Libby's phone. He said that you couldn't really
see much of the surroundings, such as the water on the bridge.
He said you hear a voice tellingthe girls to go down the hill,
but the man in the video's mouthdidn't move when it was said,
suggesting that there was another person there.
He stated that when the girls went left down the incline, they
(18:34):
would have ran into an access Rd. at the bottom that went
under the bridge. It led to the home of a man
named Brad Weber, but other carswere known to use it.
He suggested that there could have been a car waiting on this
access Rd. that picked up the girls.
He said According to the phone records, Libby's phone continued
to receive texts until 5:44 PM, then the phone lost connection
(18:57):
with the tower until 4:33 AM when it reconnected with the
tower and 12 messages were able to come through.
Baldwin also stated that data would show that human hands
handled the phone after 4:00 PM when the state says Richard
Allen was already gone from the scene.
(19:17):
At 10:00 PM on February 13th of 2017 when everyone was out
looking for the girls, investigators contacted ISP and
said the phone was not working or that it was out of the area.
When it was found the next day, it was in working order, so
therefore it had to be out of the area.
(19:39):
Baldwin also said evidence wouldshow that if the girls were at
the location that they were found in on the 13th, they would
have been found that night. He said a grid search was done
and that there were flashlights seen in that area during the
search. Also, a lot of the searchers
were searching along the Creek bank because they thought that
maybe the girls had fallen off the bridge into the water.
(20:01):
So why is it that no one saw their clothing in the Creek
while they were searching on the13th?
He also said that from where thegirls were found, people on the
bridge could hear. And that there were four people
on the bridge at the time the murders were thought to have
taken place. So why didn't no one hear any
screaming or any other noises? He then went on to talk about
(20:26):
Richard Allen's confessions. He said that when Allen was
first taken into custody, he wasin a fragile mental state and
that the conditions that he was kept in, such as being in a
maximum security prison in solitary confinement made his
mental state worse. He told the jury that they would
be watching some videos that would show the conditions he was
(20:47):
in and that they were very upsetting.
His fragile mental state was shown two weeks after his arrest
when he told his uncle not to send him any money or to get him
a lawyer. He said that he was just going
to admit to murdering the girls so that his family didn't have
to suffer. Six months later is when the
(21:09):
confession started, but allegedly not all of his
confessions fit what happened tothe girls, or were even about
the girls for that matter. He had said that he had shot the
girls in the back, which we now know the girls weren't shot.
He said he killed them with a box cutter, which we also know
(21:30):
isn't true. He then said he killed his
family and his grandkids, which his family is alive and well and
he doesn't even have any grandkids.
This leads me to wonder about the details he told Elle law
enforcement that they said only the killer would know.
Was it something very specific that he knew or was it something
(21:51):
that he could have guessed? I'd be curious to see what these
details are. Baldwin next talked about the
magic bullet that law enforcement found on the ground.
He said there was no video or photos of it being removed from
the scene, only one photo of it in place and then in the lab.
(22:12):
He said that law enforcement in that area was known to use 40
caliber ammo and more specifically Sig Sauer guns, but
no one bothered to ask an officer if he had dropped a
bullet and no officer's guns were ever tested to see if the
bullet came from 1 of theirs. Another interesting fact was
(22:32):
that Brad Weber, the guy who lived off the Access Rd. under
the bridge, also owned a Sig Sauer gun that he kept in his
vehicle. It was tested to see if it
matched the bullet found at the crime scene and it came back as
not being able to be excluded. How can they say that the bullet
(22:53):
absolutely came from Richard Allen's gun if there is another
gun that cannot be excluded fromcarrying that bullet?
Another interesting fact that Baldwin made was that the bullet
at the scene had never been fired.
It was an unspent round, but it did have sufficient markings on
it so that it was being able to use for a comparison.
(23:17):
They then took a pristine bulletand cycled it through Aled's
gun, but it didn't make sufficient markings to compare
it to the bullet that was found at the scene.
So they then fired the pristine bullet through the gun to get
more markings, then compared themarkings on the shell casing to
the bullet. In Baldwin's words, by doing
(23:41):
this, they were comparing applesand oranges, not apples and
apples. Baldwin said when the jury
looked at a photo showing the shell casing in the bullet, they
will be able to see with their naked eyes that they don't
match. He then went back to the fact
that the timeline doesn't add upwith what the state says
(24:03):
happened. He stated that Betsy Blair saw
the guy that they assumed his bridge guy from a distance of 50
feet. She also said he was in his 20s,
maybe 30, and had brown fluffy hair.
Richard Allen always kept his hair in a short military cut.
He talked about the witness Sarah called Carl Bog, who seen
(24:27):
the guy on the road. He said her witness statements
were unreliable and that in 2017she said the man was wearing a
tan jacket and was muddy. But then in 2019, after the
Bridge Guy video was released, that's when she said that he was
wearing a blue jacket and lookedlike he had slaughtered a pig.
(24:48):
In closing, Baldwin said that there was none of Allen's DNA
found at the crime scene. Which killing two people, the
way they were killed would be really hard to not leave some of
your DNA somewhere. He states that they had no
social media connection, but we know who did have a social media
(25:08):
connection with Libby, King and Klein.
I just can't help but think he was still involved in some way.
Baldwin then states that it is thought that there were two
different knives used in the killings, 1 was serrated and one
wasn't. Another reason that they think
there was more than one person involved.
(25:31):
Baldwin concluded his opening statement by saying that Mister
Allen is really innocent. The state then called their
first witnesses to the stand. These were members of the girls
families. Becky Patty, Libby's grandma,
took the stand first, then Kelsey Libby's sister, then
(25:52):
Derek Libby's dad, and last was Anna Williams, Abby's mom.
All of them talked about what great girls Abby and Libby were.
Becky said Libby was smart, active and had a lot of friends,
played four different sports andwas in the band.
She loved watching crime shows and wanted to work in forensics
(26:13):
one day. She had a good head on her
shoulders and always trusted hergut.
She was always forgetting thingsshe needed for sports or one of
her other activities, so her dadsaid he spent a lot of time
driving to bring her something that she had forgot.
Becky talked about how the girlshad come to live with her when
Libby was just three years old. Her son Derek, the girl's dad,
(26:37):
also lived with them. She said the morning of the
13th, Abby and Libby had filed some paperwork for her and she
had paid them for it. The last thing she said to Libby
was as they were leaving to go to the trails, she told her to
take a jacket and Libby said, Grandma, I'll be OK.
Becky's testimony was heartbreaking and it was clear
(26:59):
that she was still grieving. She talked about going to the
trails and looking for the girlsand how when it started to get
dark, they knew they needed to call the police because Libby
was scared of the dark. Becky tried calling Anna
Williams, Abby's mom, but couldn't get a hold of her.
She and her husband might call the police while she drove to
(27:19):
Anna's house. Abby's grandfather was there and
told Becky that Anna was at work.
As Becky got back in her car, Anna called her.
Becky told her that they couldn't find the girls and they
met at the police station. Becky had made posts about the
missing girls on social media, so it wasn't long before there
(27:39):
were hundreds of people searching the woods for the
girls. The official search went on
until around 2:00 AM, though some people stayed in the woods
all night. The next morning at around 6:00
AM, everyone met at the fire station and were put into groups
to do a grid search. Becky then talked about the
(28:00):
moment she heard that the girls were found.
She had no clue that they were deceased.
She had been searching a field close to their house when her
friend ran up and said they werefound.
They jumped in the car and droveto the Mirror's trailhead.
Becky ran up to a fireman and told him to take her to Libby,
but he told her no. Then she seen her sister, she
(28:23):
was crying. Becky ran up to her and said hey
they found them but her sister wouldn't say anything.
Mike then came over and sat Becky in the truck while he went
to talk to someone. Becky was confused as to why no
one was talking to her or takingher to Libby.
(28:43):
Then she saw the coroner's van, and she knew.
Law enforcement called the families to the fire station to
tell them officially. Since Libby's death, Kelsey
Siebert, formerly German, has graduated college, gotten
(29:05):
married, has a little girl and another on the way.
During her testimony, she told pretty much the same story as
Becky. She talked about how her grandma
had given her a car when she turned 16 and she would help
drive her sister and her friendsaround wherever they needed to
go. She said she had been with Libby
the first time she crossed the Monan High Bridge within the
(29:27):
months leading up to the murders.
She talked about how scary it was and how she went across on
her hands and knees because eventhough she was afraid, she
didn't want Libby to go alone. She talked about the ride to the
trails that day that the girls were murdered.
On the way there, Libby was taking selfies and being silly.
(29:47):
They were listening to music andsinging and laughing.
They had no idea was what was about to come.
Kelsey said she had no reason toworry about her sister and Abby
going to the trails and it had always been a place that they
felt safe. She was at her boyfriend's house
getting ready to go to work whenshe got the call from her
grandma that the girls were missing.
(30:08):
She went to the trails to help everyone search.
Derek Libby's father talked about how Libby had called him
that day and asked if he would pick her and Abby up from the
trails, and he told her it wouldbe a couple of hours before he
was done with his work. On his way there, he called
Libby's phone and got no answer.Once he got there, he called and
(30:30):
called, walked the trails, askedpeople he saw if they had seen
the girls. Then he went back to the car and
tried to call Libby again, then walked the trails again.
Finally, close to 4:00, he called his mom and told her what
was going on. They knew that Libby was
responsible, it would always be where she was supposed to be and
(30:52):
she always answered her phone. Anna Williams, Abby's mom, took
the stand next. She had moved to Indiana from
Northern Michigan in 2006 when Abby was only about 3 years old.
Abby was her only child and theywere very close.
Anna worked part time as a bartender at a local restaurant
(31:15):
in Delphi called The Doc, but her main job was in healthcare.
She went on to describe Abby as smart and reserved.
She wouldn't go out of her way to talk to most people.
She hung around with a pretty small group of friends.
She took part in volleyball and in band.
(31:36):
She was kind, helpful, smart andquiet.
Anna said she was a very shy child and she used to have to
remind Abby to keep eye contact while she talked to people.
Anna said that Abby had a small group of friends and did fair in
school. Anna worked a lot, so there
wasn't time for Abby to have sleepover overs or for Anna to
(31:57):
drive her and her friends places.
She also missed a lot of events that Abby had in the evening due
to her work schedule, so she didn't get to know Abby's
friends very well. She did know Libby since Abby
had gone on vacation with Libby's family not long before
the murders. Abby usually stayed with her
grandfather while her mom worked, but on the night of the
(32:20):
12th, she stayed the night at Libby's.
Abby used Libby's phone to call Anna on the 13th to see if she
could spend the afternoon with Libby.
Anna told her she wouldn't be able to pick her up until she
got off of work that evening around 8, and Becky said that it
was OK with her if Abby stayed until then.
(32:41):
Baldwin didn't do any extensive cross examining of the family
members. His main question to each of
them was would the girls fight back if someone was attacking
them and how loud their voices were.
He was trying to prove that there was no way that Richard
Allen alone could have murdered both girls and if they had been
attacked and murdered where theywere found and someone on the
(33:03):
bridge should have been able to hear them, I believe he could
have done it alone. He had a gun that he pulled on
them while they were still on the bridge.
He didn't shoot the gun, but he most likely used it to scare
them into doing what he said. The girls were probably too
scared to try to resist or run away after Anna.
(33:24):
The state said that they had no one else scheduled to testify
that day and Judge Gaul was pissed.
She said that she expected them to use time wisely and to have
some consideration for the jury in their time.
The State was able to find Deputy Mitchell Catron, who had
been on duty the day the girls went missing, and responded to
(33:45):
the call at 5:15 PM. He drove down the Access Rd.
under the bridge and talked to Brad Weber.
McClellan asked if Weber was sweating, if he was disheveled
or covered in blood, to which Catron answered no to each
question. Catron said he searched the
property of Weber but found nothing, even though the defense
(34:05):
accused him of not checking 2 outbuildings on the property.
Baldwin asked Catron what made him go to Weber's to search and
he said that he had been there before for criminal mischief
relating to some chicken coops. Catron wasn't on the trails long
as his shift ended and he went home for the next year.
(34:25):
He was put on the tip line but said he didn't investigate.
Any tips on Richard Allen. After Catron's testimony they
answered 2 jury questions. One was is it common for people
walking the trail to get to the bridge and turn around, which
the answer to that was unknown. The other question was is there
(34:45):
a trail to go down to the Creek instead of across the bridge?
The answer to that question was no.
Richard Allen arrived in court Saturday morning at 9:00 AM for
the second day of testimony wearing a blue striped button
down shirt, khaki pants and glasses.
He was seen looking back at his mother and his wife.
(35:08):
Abby and Libby's families were also in attendance.
The second day started with Steve Mullins, Delphi's Chief of
police, in 2017 and he was on duty the day of the murders.
Mullen described February 13th of 2017 as routine and spoke
(35:31):
about hearing radio traffic and receiving texts about Libby
German and Abby Williams disappearance.
During his testimony, Mullen stood up and approached a map of
the trail on the TV and pointed out where Abby and Libby
entered. After learning the girls did not
return, Mullen said he contactedDelphi Middle School and spoke
(35:51):
with the search party. Mullen did not participate in
the search but said he stayed behind a dispatch.
Mullen said when he left the dispatch center at 2:00 AM on
February 14th, he told the courthe did not believe anyone had
hurt the girls and believed theywould return home.
He returned to work at 7:30 AM on February 14th and met with
(36:17):
the search party. He said he did not direct them
where to go. Allen's attorney, Andrew
Baldwin, objected to Mullen's testimony about the search,
saying that Mullen only knew thewhereabouts of the search
because he was at dispatch. Mullen continued his testimony
by describing when he heard the girls bodies were found and
(36:40):
noting on the courtroom map where they were located.
He said he met with Abby and Libby's families around 2:00 PM
to say they had found bodies andwere working on identification.
Mullen said he then learned of astore near the start of the
trail, the Hoosier Harvest store, having security cameras.
The store's camera pointed towards 300 N and West, and he
(37:04):
reviewed footage from 8:00 AM to6:00 PM on February 13th of
2017. He also discussed drone footage
taken of the trail on February 13th of 2024, which state
prosecutor Nick Mcglelan said was to represent and compare
what the two scenes look like 7 years apart.
(37:27):
McClellan asked Mullen what kindof people would be seen on the
bridge in 2017, which he answered Teenagers and younger
people. Baldwin then began questioning
Mullen, starting by asking aboutimprovements made on the trail
since 2017. Judge Fran Gold chimed in,
(37:49):
asking about the thought processbehind searching for the girls
downstream. Mullins said it was in case the
girls might have fallen off the bridge.
Baldwin asked if Mullen went to the scene and Mullins said he
did not. Mullen described to the court
where the bodies were found in relation to Morning Heights
(38:09):
Cemetery, which is near the trail.
He said he went to Weber's property on February 27th of
2024, but did not elaborate. Gaul asked if it would take 9
minutes to walk from the trailhead to the end of the
bridge, and Mullen said about the second person to testify
(38:32):
Saturday was Jake Johns, a Delphi resident who works at a
propane company. John spotted Liberty Germans tie
Dye shirt in Deer Creek during the search on the 14th.
Johns said he knew Libby's family and his wife worked with
Libby's grandmother, Becky. However, he was not familiar
with Abby Williams or her family.
(38:55):
John said that he joined the search for the girls on February
14th and he knew that they wouldbe looking for a tie dye shirt
that belonged to Libby. He walked four hours around the
area and to the High Bridge. That's when he spotted the shirt
in the water. He and a firefighter standing
nearby tried to contact police to report the shirt, but John
(39:18):
said they could not get a hold of anyone.
The firefighter went to the shirt himself and also located a
pair of black Nike shoes that later were found to belong to
Libby. Soon after, a person living on
the other side of the Creek was called to come down to the
search area. Brad, German and Kelsey also
arrived. That's when Johns said another
(39:40):
member of the search party said quote UN quote, we have found
the bodies. Johns said he did not personally
see the bodies. The defense began questioning
Johns, only learning that Johns saw footprints on February 14th
on an access Rd. near Deer Creek.
(40:02):
After being questioned by the prosecution and defense, again,
nothing new was said. No further questions were asked.
The last person to testify on Saturday was Pat Brown, the man
who found the girls bodies. Brown told the jury he'd known
Libby German's grandfather, MikePaddy, since high school and
(40:26):
also knew Libby. He said he was at home eating
dinner and watching TV when his wife told him about Libby and
Abby and how they had went missing.
Brown said he called a man namedTom Mears for help and went out
in the dark to search for the girls he asked.
He said he stopped at a man named Ron Logan's house to ask
(40:47):
if he saw the girls, then continued to the bridge to talk
to search party members. And if you remember right, Ron
Logan is the man who was a suspect early on and his
property is where the girls werefound.
But I believe Ron Logan died a couple years ago, a few years
(41:09):
ago. So afterwards, Pat drove to the
nearby Mears property and met with Tom to look for Libby and
Abby. Brown said he called off work on
February 14th to help with the search efforts.
He and Mears drove into town where Brown said Delphi Police
(41:29):
Chief Steve Mullen was quote UN quote heading the search up.
However, Mullins said in his testimony earlier that he did
not head up the search. So there is a little
discrepancy. Brown picked up his daughter
around 11:00 AM on February 14thand soon received a call from
(41:52):
Mears to say they'd found Libby's shirt along Deer Creek.
Brown went to the north side of the Creek and found the girls
bodies on the way. Brown said he thought they were
mannequins at 1st and became emotional as he told the court.
We found them. Melissa, a relative of the
(42:15):
Patty's, was with Brown when they spotted the girls.
She ran off to call the police. Brown noted on the courtroom map
where he found the girls and said he got within 5 feet of the
bodies. Police arrived before Brown left
the scene. Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin
questioned Brown, focusing on the sound of voices, what could
(42:38):
be heard, and if Brown had cell service while in the woods.
Judge Gole also asked questions about Brown's cell phone
provider, how long it took for police to arrive after they
found the girls, and how long ittook for the scene to be
secured. Brown answered that officers
arrived within 5 minutes of being called and it didn't take
(42:58):
long at all for the area to be secured.
Saturday's court session ended at noon after the jury was shown
a photograph of Libby's shirt and shoes in the muddy water of
Deer Creek. I will be doing a recap every
week, so come back next week to hear what happened in the first
(43:19):
full week of the trial. Until then, peace out.
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