Liberty "Libby" German, Richard Allen, and Abigail "Abby" Williams. (Images of the victims via the FBI. Image of the suspect via the Indiana State Police.)
A top prosecutor claims that the man who murdered two young girls and abandoned their bodies near a trail in Delphi, Indiana, has confessed multiple times to the killings, but the defense asserts those "incriminating statements" should not be trusted because of the suspect's mental and physical state.
"He made multiple confessions to multiple people," Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McCleland said at a hearing Thursday, according to WRTV. These purported admissions allegedly happened on five or six occasions.
"Confessions, non-confessions, incriminating statements, non-incriminating statements, we'll deal with that," defense attorney Bradley Rozzi said. "The jury will hear all of that."
Richard Allen is facing two counts of murder in the twin 2017 slayings of Abigail "Abby" Williams, 13, and her friend Liberty "Libby" German, 14, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off of the Delphi Historic Trails system.
Abby and Libby vanished while walking the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what was once the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle and their deaths were determined to be homicides.
The case long went unsolved, but law enforcement arrested Allen as the alleged killer in October 2022.
Testimony on Thursday did not go into much detail about Allen's in-custody behavior, though Westville warden John Galipeau noted the defendant showed "strange behavior" the day after being given legal work.
Richard Allen prior to his incarceration (left) and on April 4, 2023 (right) (Carroll County Circuit Court filing)
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.