Jurors in Delphi have been told that the “mechanical imprint” left on an unspent cartridge found among the bodies of murdered teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams could not have been left by the gun confiscated from the man accused of killing them. .
As Richard Allen’s long-awaited trial in Indiana entered its 16th day in Carroll County Court, the court heard a slew of expert testimony presented by the defense.
Allen, 52, has been charged with four counts in connection with the murders of best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder, murder committed during the act of another crime. , in this case kidnapping.
If convicted on all charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 130 years in prison.
The only physical link between Allen and the crime scene in the woods near the Monon High Bridge trail where the girls took the hike from which they would never return on February 13, 2017, was an unspent cartridge found in the dirt near the foot by Libby.
Richard Allen. The 52-year-old faces murder charges in the 2017 deaths of teenage best friends Libby and Abby.
Allen is accused of killing his best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, after they went on a hike outside their hometown of Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017.
According to the state, which called its own firearms examiner during its case, the scratches and marks found on the cartridge are irrefutable proof that, although never fired, it was “recycled,” Allen’s Sig Sauer P226 .40 caliber which was seized at his home. before his arrest on October 26, 2022.
But today the defense responded with its own expert.
Dr. Eric Warren took the stand Tuesday afternoon to say he could find no “individual characteristics” on the cartridge that matched the marks made by the ejector, extractor or breech of Allen’s gun.
In fact, state expert Michelle Oberg was only able to repeat the markings found on the unspent cartridge by firing test cartridges from the gun. Cycling alone did not produce marks notable enough for analysis.
According to Warren Oberg, he was “comparing apples to oranges” and should have used unspent cartridges for comparison.
The suspect was first seen in images captured on one of the girls’ cellphones before they were killed.
For 13 months, Allen was held in the most secure unit at the Westville Correctional Facility, in solitary confinement and often on suicide watch.
State’s Attorney James Luttrull Jr attempted to undermine the doctor’s evidence during aggressive cross-examination in which he established that Warren had submitted no expert report and never examined the cartridge himself, relying instead on a “handful of photographs” he took from their conclusions.
Computer forensics analyst Stacy Eldridge later took the stand in an attempt to cast doubt on the state’s timeline, much of which was obtained from evidence taken from Libby’s cell phone which they claim stopped moving. at 2:32 pm on February 13, 2017 and it never moved. again.
According to Eldridge, she had found evidence that the phone had been in and out of the lobby during the time Libby was known to be walking on the trail and then left the lobby at 5:45 p.m. on February 13 and left. He reconnected to the cell tower at 4:33 the next morning. , when suddenly several text messages, voicemails, and missed calls filled the phone.
Eldridge suggested that the lack of reception could not be explained by anything other than some external factor, such as the phone, which was found under Abby’s body, being in a metal building or someone using a signal jamming device.
Family members of Liberty German and Abigail Williams heard the announcement from Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter during a news conference in Delphi, Indiana, on Monday, October 31, 2022.
At the beginning and end of this time period, Eldridge said he identified a time when someone plugged in the jack of a wired headset and unplugged it.
According to the defense, this means the phone was “tampered with by human hands” at a time when Allen cannot be located at the crime scene.
But under questioning from prosecutor Nick McLeland, Eldridge’s confidence crumbled and she was forced to admit that water damage or even dirt could have caused the audio output “activity” to be recorded in error.
He also admitted that the most likely explanation for the phone being in and out of reception was that it simply stopped working, as it had done intermittently throughout the day, due to the remote, wooded location in which it was found.
The defense has largely focused on the conditions under which Allen was held awaiting trial.
For 13 months he was held in the most secure unit at the Westville Correctional Facility, in solitary confinement and often on suicide watch.
The abandoned Monon High Bridge outside Delphi, Indiana, where Abby and Libby were murdered
The two best friends were last seen alive on their fateful walk to Monon High Bridge in February 2017.
It is part of a concerted attempt to convince the jury that the multiple confessions Allen made during this time cannot be trusted, but were instead the product of a man who suffered from major depressive disorder with psychosis due to the stress of their circumstances.
This morning, they pressed the issue once again with the testimony of Harvard psychiatrist and solitary confinement specialist Dr. Stuart Grassinan.
According to Grassinan, the strange behavior that Allen displayed primarily between April and June 2023, which included smearing his own feces in his cell and eating it, were “textbook” examples of psychosis or delirium brought on by “enormously lonely” situations and ” toxic”. prolonged detention environment in solitary confinement.
The defense is expected to rest tomorrow.
