What happened in the Delphi murders trial this week: 'Bridge Guy' video shown, timeline
Left to right: Abigail Williams, Richard Allen, Libby German (Indiana State Police)
The murder trial of Richard Allen featured jurors hearing a week of testimony and viewing new evidence presented in the case. Allen is charged with the murders of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana in 2017.
The teens, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on Feb. 14, 2017. The girls went missing a day earlier while hiking the trail on a mild winter's day off school.
RELATED: Delphi murders: Unspent bullet, video provide proof of man's guilt, prosecutors say
Allen is charged with two counts of murder as well as two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping. The 52-year-old pharmacy technician was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the deaths of Williams and German.
Delphi murders trial begins in Indiana
The trial against a man accused of killing two girls back back in 2017 is now underway in Delphi, Indiana. Liberty German and Abigail Williams were teenagers when they were reported missing after going on a hike to the Monon High Bridge over Deer Creek on Feb. 13; their bodies were found the next day about a half mile away from their last known location. LiveNOW from FOX's Mike Pache spoke with Criminal Defense Attorney Randy Zelin about what comes next now that a trial is underway for the suspect who was arrested in October 2022.
Authorities searched Allen’s home in 2022 and seized a blue Carhartt jacket, a SIG Sauer P226 .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a .40-caliber S&W cartridge in a "wooden keepsake box" from a dresser between two closets in his bedroom.
RELATED: Trial for Richard Allen, Delphi murders suspect, starts Monday: What to know
FOX News reported that the gun was consistent with a .40-caliber unspent bullet officers located at the site of the murders in 2017, police stated at the time.
According to the Associated Press, prosecutors revealed in court documents released several weeks after Allen’s arrest that testing determined that an unspent bullet found between Williams and German "had been cycled through" Allen’s gun.
What are the key moments in the Delphi murders trial so far?
Family of the victims speak
Abby's and Libby's family members testified before the public on Oct. 18, 2024, during the first day of the trial. FOX News reported that a judge issued a gag order in the case in 2022.
Becky Patty, Libby's grandmother, was the first to speak before the court, describing her granddaughter as adventurous, intelligent, and calm. Patty recalled the moment on Feb. 14, 2017, when searchers located Libby's and Abby's bodies in the woods after they had been missing for a day.
Other family members who testified on Oct. 18 included Libby's sister, Kelsi German Siebert; Libby’s father, Derrick German; and Abby's mother, Anna Williams.
Crime scene described
Jurors heard grisly details about the crime scene during opening statement on Oct. 18 and in testimony on Oct. 21.
Prosecutor Nick McLeland said in his opening statement that when searchers found the two girls dead in a wooded area near the Monon High Bridge, Libby was naked and covered in blood. Both girls' throats had been cut several times, FOX 59 in Indianapolis reported.
McLeland noted to the jury that clothing was mismatched or thrown into a creek. Abby was wearing her own undershirt but Libby's sweatshirt. She was also wearing jeans and shoes, but her socks were missing. One of Libby's shoes and Libby's cellphone were located beneath Abby's body.
FOX 59 reported that an individual put twigs and leaves over the girls' bodies, which were placed a few feet apart, but not enough to cover them completely, and the teens limbs were slightly bent. During the third day of the trial on Oct. 21, jurors viewed roughly 40 photos of the crime scene.
Citing court documents, FOX News noted that McLeland claimed that Allen, who has allegedly confessed to the murder various times in jail shared details that only the killer would know.
‘Bridge Guy’ video released
A key piece of evidence in the Delphi murder case is a video that Libby filmed on her cell phone before she and Abby were murdered.
Jurors watched 43 seconds of the video in court on Oct. 22, 2024. The footage shows Libby and Abby walking with an unknown man wearing a hat and a blue utility jacket who became known over the past five years as "Bridge Guy," FOX News reported.
"Guys, down the hill," the man can be heard saying to the girls in the video. One of the girls, who experts believe to be Libby, can be heard responding, "There’s no path down here. We’ve got to go down here."
According to FOX 59, the video goes on to show the girls walking down toward Deer Creek. Searchers found the victims’ bodies on the other side of the same creek the next morning. Indiana State Police digital forensic expert Brian Bunner said he extracted the same video from Libby's phone for analysis four separate times between 2017 and 2019.
"Bridge Guy" witness
On Oct. 23, 2024, Sarah Carbaugh, a witness, testified during the trial and placed Allen near the scene of the crime on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
Carbaugh said she saw the same man shown in Libby's video, known as the "Bridge Guy," walking down a road around 4 p.m. on the day the girls went missing. The man had his hands in his pockets and his head was down. Carbaugh testified that she and the man did not make eye contact.
According to FOX 59, Carbaugh also shared with jurors that Allen had mud and blood on his clothing, looking like he had fallen in a muddy creek.
Carbaugh did not call her tip into police for three weeks, explaining that she delayed providing the information because she was "overthinking" a traumatic situation.
The woman also testified that her videotaped interview was lost due to a technical error. The state has previously admitted that some interviews were lost due to errors with their system, FOX 59 noted.
According to FOX News, Richard Allen’s defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin, argued that Carbaugh's testimony, saying she had described Allen's clothing as muddy, not bloody, in her deposition with investigators in 2017. Carbaugh contends, noting she remembered saying Allen was bloody at the time.
Richard Allen’s interview with police in 2017
Richard Allen contacted police with information on Feb. 17, 2017, several days after the murders of the girls.
FOX 59 reported that Allen agreed to meet Indiana Department of Natural Resources Capt. Dan Dulin in a store parking lot, after Allen refused to have Dulin over at his home or meet him at an area police station.
The news outlet noted that Allen apparently wanted to "self-report" that he had been on the Monon High Bridge the day the girls went missing and saw three young girls as he was walking the trail, Dulin said.
Allen said at the time that he was not paying much attention to his surroundings because he was checking a stock ticker on his phone.
Dulin also testified that Allen changed the timeline of when he had been on the trail, initially saying he was there from 1 to 3 p.m. but later changed his timeline to 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
According to FOX59, the sergeant said he did not think much of the interview, which only lasted about 10 minutes until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Dulin filed his notes from the 2017 interview in a Microsoft Word document that was saved into his agency's computer system.
But because of a clerical error, the interview was filed under the wrong name, Richard Allen Whiteman – "Whiteman" being the name of the street Allen lived on – and labeled as "cleared," Kathy Shank, a retired DCS worker who volunteered to help with administrative duties for Carroll County, told FOX 59. Allen was not officially named a suspect in the 2017 murders until October 2022.