CHICAGO (CBS) — Delphi double murderer Richard Allen will learn his fate during sentencing Friday morning.
A The Indiana jury convicted Allen in the murders of 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German and 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams who disappeared while walking in Delphi in 2017.
The jury, made up of seven women and five men, deliberated for about 19 hours over three days before finding Allen, 52, guilty of all charges.
Allen faces a maximum sentence of 130 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for 8 a.m. CT.
Delphi Murders: Timeline of Events
On February 13, 2017, Abby and Libby were dropped off at a walking trail on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi. When they didn’t meet Libby’s father later that day, they were reported missing. Prosecutors say they were found dead about a mile from where they were last seen with cuts to their throats.
The police have investigated thousands of leadsand released several composite sketches of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
Audio evidence Libby’s cell phone revealed that an unknown man had told the girls to go “down the hill.” Libby too recorded a short Snapchat video of a man police believed was the killer. Although police released the photo and audio just days after the murders, the case stalled for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Allen lived in Delphi and worked at a local CVS Pharmacy until a clerk involved in the investigation noticed in September 2022 that he had placed himself at the scene of the murders. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been on that trail around the time the girls were allegedly killed. He told them he had been walking in the area and saw three “females” near a bridge, but had not spoken to them.
On October 13, 2022, Allen was interviewed again after police searched former suspects. Allen was arrested after police matched an unused cartridge found among the girls’ bodies to a gun recovered from his home during a police investigation.
Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022 and charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the indictment to include two additional murder charges. Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the course of the trial, the prosecution highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions while in prison: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the warden and other prisons. employees and prisoners. They played audio recordings of some confessions to the jury. The defense doubted the confessions, saying they were made involuntarily and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time.
Monica Wala, the former chief psychologist at the Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified that he initially told her he was innocent but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.
According to WTHR, Wala testified that Allen told her, “I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry,” and that he originally planned to sexually assault the victims, but ran away when he saw a van nearby and that he cut off the car. girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.
Allen’s lawyers previously suggested it was about the girls killed as part of a pagan ritual sacrifice and accused police of ignoring evidence from the crime scene. In March 2017, an FBI agent alleged in a search warrant request that the girls’ bodies had been “moved and staged” at the crime scene. According to the judge’s ruling, that theory was not heard by the jury.
Thompkins said Allen’s conviction could be overturned if it is determined on appeal that the jury did not hear enough evidence.
The defense can appeal within thirty days of the conviction.
This is a development story.
