An image from a cellphone video taken by 14-year-old Libby German on the day in 2017 that she and 13-year-old Abby Williams were killed near Delphi, Indiana, shows a man who police believe is the killer. Prosecutors in the ongoing double murder trial of Richard Allen argued that he is the “bridge man” in the photo. Photo courtesy of Indiana State Police
Nov. 9 (UPI) — Jurors in the high-profile trial of Richard Allen’s double murder in Indiana concluded their second full day of deliberations Saturday without reaching a verdict.
The 12-person jury deliberated from 9 a.m. EST until just before 3 p.m. before leaving the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi, Ind., without a verdict and will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Monday. This is reported by the Indianapolis Star.
The jury heard the case Thursday at 1:25 p.m. They are trying to decide two murders and two murders in the kidnapping of 52-year-old Allen, who is accused of kidnapping and brutally murdering Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German. 14, on February 13, 2017.
The panel of five men and seven women began their deliberations after a 17-day trial in which prosecutors portrayed Allen as the killer of the two girls, whose bodies were found downhill from a hiking trail a day after they went missing near the Monon High Bridge. in Delphi, a city of 3,000 people 67 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
Allen was formally charged in late 2022, nearly five years after the murders, when he was taken into custody by Indiana State Police. He has pleaded not guilty.
During the trial, defense attorneys portrayed Allen as an innocent man wrongly accused of the heinous crimes, despite repeatedly confessing to the murders, including one instance in which he his wife said over the phone: ‘I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”
Allen’s attorneys are doubting the confessions, arguing they were insincere and merely the product of mental illness and psychological trauma he suffered while in solitary confinement, according to a neuropsychologist. who testified as a witness for the defense.
In his closing argumentsAttorney Bradley Rozzi noted that there is no forensic evidence or explicit witness statements linking Allen to a hiking trail or the bridge on the day the girls went missing, and argued that in the five years between when the girls were murdered and his arrest, Allen had ample opportunity to flee, but did not.
However, prosecutors responded by arguing that an Indiana State Trooper, who had listened to more than 700 of Allen’s phone calls in prison, identified his voice from a video found on Libby German’s phone, in which says a man“Guys… down the hill.”
They alleged that Allen forced the teens off the hiking trail with plans to rape them, but changed his intended actions when a van passed by. Instead, they said, he slit their throats.
Prosecution witness Railly Voorhies, who was 16 in 2017, testified she was out with three other people that day and they passed a man she identified as Allen based on a grainy still image of the so-called “bridge guy” — a man recorded in Libby’s 43-second video walking behind them on the path.
The photo of the ‘bridgeman’ was released by police shortly after the murders and has long symbolized the hunt for the killer in the high-profile case.
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