Delphi murders: Convicted killer in mountaineering path slayings cites new proof in bid to overturn conviction

WARNING: GRAPHIC 

Richard Allen, the Indiana man lately discovered responsible of brutally murdering two teen ladies on a mountaineering path in 2017, is asking a Carroll County court docket to overturn his conviction, in keeping with court docket paperwork obtained by Fox Information Digital.

Allen’s attorneys lately filed a movement asking a Carroll County Circuit Courtroom choose to both vacate his homicide convictions or schedule a listening to to debate 4 particular points that they are saying may show Allen harmless within the murders of 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams.

“It is pure for a convicted assassin to need his homicide conviction overturned,” Áine Cain, co-host of the “Homicide Sheet” podcast, which has been overlaying the Delphi murders for 5 years, informed Fox Information Digital. “It is the job of the protection attorneys and his capacity to attempt to assist them accomplish that. … And his appellate workforce will in all probability be issues extra from a authorized perspective or his rights violated at any level — was the trial run correctly, issues like that.”

Cain and co-host Kevin Greenlee, an lawyer, attended Allen’s trial and described the prosecution’s efficiency as “stable.”

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Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County courthouse in Delphi, Indiana, following a listening to on Nov. 22, 2022. (AP Photograph/Darron Cummings)

He was sentenced to serve 130 years in jail after a four-week-long trial. Prosecutors stated Allen lured the women, who have been mountaineering collectively on Feb. 13, 2017, away from the Excessive Monon Path and right into a secluded wooded space the place he slit their necks after which coated their our bodies with twigs and leaves.

“After the trial, I consider we felt … whereas there have been points with this investigation and whereas definitely the misplacement of the tip round Richard Allen was unlucky, we felt that the investigative workforce and the prosecutors did job proving their case in court docket based mostly on the proof and that they efficiently convicted the person who murdered Liberty German and Abigail Williams,” Cain stated.

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Nonetheless, Allen’s attorneys are pointing to 4 items of proof they are saying ought to permit Allen to get his convictions overturned.

White van

Throughout his trial, prosecutors heard from a jail psychologist who testified that Allen, now 52, admitted eager to sexually assault the women however was spooked when a van apparently drove by the wooded space of the Excessive Monon Path in Delphi the place he lured and attacked them.

The van’s driver testified throughout Allen’s trial that he drove by the crime scene round 2:30 p.m. that day — simply two minutes earlier than prosecutors stated German’s telephone turned off at 2:32 p.m. — and arrived at his mother and father’ house at 2:44 p.m., in keeping with the court docket paperwork.

Prosecutors argued that seeing the white van was a element “solely the killer would know” throughout Allen’s trial.

Allen’s attorneys at the moment are disputing testimony from the van driver, saying “his arrival at ‘about 2:30’ couldn’t have been a element solely the killer would know, as a result of it didn’t occur.”

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They wrote of their movement that surveillance footage displaying what seems to be a white van matching an outline of that man’s white van was noticed driving alongside an entry highway at 2:44 p.m. that day. They argue the footage exhibits the van driver couldn’t have handed by the crime scene at 2:30 p.m. and would have arrived at his mother and father’ house later than 2:44, thus throwing off the prosecution’s timeline.

Delphi police recovered Libby German’s cellphone beneath her physique on Feb. 14, 2017. The telephone had a 43-second video displaying Abigail Williams strolling on the Monon Excessive Bridge in Delphi towards German whereas a person carrying a darkish jacket and denims walks behind her. (FOX Nation)

FBI proof additional exhibits that van driver’s telephone at his mother and father’ house at 2:50 p.m., Allen’s lawyer stated.

Different man’s confession

The convicted killer’s protection can be highlighting an alleged confession from a now-deceased man named Ron Logan, who apparently admitted to killing German and Williams to a different inmate in jail someday earlier than Could 15, 2017.

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His attorneys stated the confession is “newly found proof.”

Snow covers the water of Deer Creek because the Monon Excessive Bridge towers above in Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 9, 2022. (Nikos Frazier/Journal & Courier/USA TODAY NETWORK)

An investigator’s handwritten notes detailing the opposite inmate’s retelling of Logan’s confession are included within the latest movement. Logan allegedly informed the opposite inmate that he lured the 2 victims to a wooded space of the path and killed them with a boxcutter — a weapon forensic pathologist Dr. Roland Kohr testified throughout Allen’s trial that the killer could have used, in keeping with FOX 59.

The FBI searched Logan’s house not removed from the Excessive Monon Path on Could 17, 2017, in keeping with FOX 59.

“Ron Logan’s confession exculpates Mr. Allen and would in all probability produce a distinct consequence at a retrial.”

— Richard Allen’s attorneys

“Ron Logan’s confession exculpates Mr. Allen and would in all probability produce a distinct consequence at a retrial,” Allen’s attorneys wrote of their movement. “Accordingly, the Courtroom ought to both vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this movement for a listening to.”

Supt. Doug Carter of the Indiana State Police speaks throughout a press convention on an replace on the Delphi murders investigation on the Canal Heart in Delphi, Indiana, on April 22, 2019. (Nikos Frazier/Journal & Courier/USA TODAY NETWORK)

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Logan died in 2022.

Jail switch

Allen’s attorneys additional argue that the then-suspect was “whisked away” from Carroll County Jail to an Indiana Division of Corrections facility in 2022 with no correct safekeeping continuing — the authorized course of for shifting an inmate from one detention heart to a different.

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“This must be significantly disturbing as a result of, had he been given the chance to take action, Mr. Allen had an absolute private proper to refuse the switch to the Division’s custody,” his attorneys wrote within the Monday movement.

Delphi homicide suspect Richard Allen was improperly transferred from Carroll County Jail to an Indiana Division of Corrections facility, his legal professionals argue. (FOX 59 Indianapolis )

They additional say Allen “had no alternative to train his proper to refuse the switch to the Indiana Division of Corrections’ custody or to make any of the objections set out above to the whole course of the continuing” as a result of he and his counsel “had no discover of the authorized skullduggery that might land him in solitary confinement” for 23 months earlier than his trial.

Headphone jack on German’s telephone

Close to the conclusion of Allen’s trial, the protection introduced testimony from a former FBI forensic skilled who stated it appeared as if somebody plugged headphones into German’s telephone, which was found close to the women’ our bodies on Feb. 14, at 5:45 p.m on Feb. 13, hours after they have been final seen. 

The headphones have been then faraway from the telephone at 10:32, Stacey Eldridge testified, presenting a attainable problem to the prosecution’s timeline that they have been killed round 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, in keeping with FOX 59.

Grainy cellphone video footage and a sketch of a major suspect within the homicide of Delphi ladies Abigail Williams and Liberty German on the workplace wall of Tobe Leazenby, Sheriff of Carroll County, Indiana. (Robert Scheer/IndyStar/USA TODAY NETWORK)

An skilled introduced by the state testified at trial that the headphone proof could have been the results of water or dust stepping into the headphone jack, and Allen’s attorneys say they by no means obtained an opportunity to dispute that testimony in court docket.

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“If Ms. Eldridge’s precise skilled opinion that wired headphones have been plugged into L.G.’s auxiliary port at 5:44 p.m. on February 13, 2017, and unplugged virtually 5 hours later have been credited by a jury, the State’s narrative is unimaginable,” the movement states. “Somebody aside from Richard Allen was dealing with L.G.’s telephone a number of instances lengthy after the State contended Mr. Allen left the scene earlier than 4:00 p.m. on February 13, 2017.”

Prosecutors pointed to varied proof that positioned Allen on the scene on the time of the crime, together with an unspent bullet on the crime scene matching a firearm recovered from Allen’s house in 2022, in addition to the handfuls of confessions he made in jail, as FOX 59 Indianapolis reported on the time.

On Feb. 14, 2017, Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, have been killed whereas biking on trails close to Delphi, Indiana, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. (Indiana State Police)

Allen’s protection leaned largely on skilled evaluation displaying Allen’s unhealthy psychological state after his 2022 arrest, which took the Delphi group as a shock on the time. Allen had been a longtime CVS worker within the small Indiana city when police took him into custody 5 years after the murders.

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For the primary time for the reason that ladies have been reported lacking, jurors obtained to observe 43 seconds of the essential video in court docket on Oct. 22. The video exhibits German and Williams strolling with an unknown man carrying a hat and blue utility jacket who has grow to be identified over the past 5 years as “Bridge Man.” German captured the video at 2:13 p.m., lower than 25 minutes after she and Williams’ members of the family dropped them off on the path.

“Guys, down the hill,” the person could be heard saying to the women within the video.

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Cain, who has a guide in regards to the Delphi murders referred to as “Shadow of the Bridge” set to be revealed in August, and Greenlee consider Allen’s confessions performed in court docket have been plausible. 

“I believe it’s price noting that his voice as he spoke to them, it sounded equivalent to the voice on the recording of ‘Bridge Man’ saying ‘down the hill,’” Cain stated. “I am undecided you may do a scientifically legitimate check, however the reactions of everybody in that courtroom, or virtually everybody within the courtroom, have been: This is identical man.'”

Allen’s attorneys didn’t instantly reply to inquiries from Fox Information Digital.