A jury has found Richard Allen guilty in the brutal slayings of Indiana teens Abigail Williams and Liberty German — who vanished during a hike in Delphi in 2017.
The 12-person jury found Allen, 52, guilty on two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing kidnapping after roughly 19 hours of deliberations. He faces up to 130 years behind bars at his sentencing on Dec. 20.
Allen, a former drugstore employee, stood emotionless as the verdict was read aloud, only briefly glancing back at his family.
Prosecutors hugged each other as the decision was announced, while Allen’s defense lawyers comforted their client before he was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom, according to a report by 13 News WTHR.
As Richard’s wife, Kathy Allen, walked out of the courtroom, she told the outlet, “this isn’t over at all” — leaving the door open for a likely appeal.
Outside the courthouse, crowds loudly cheered as people began pouring out of the building and jubilantly relaying news of Allen’s conviction.
Libby’s grandmother, Becky Patty, cried and hugged other family members on their way out of the courthouse, the outlet reported.
A previously imposed gag order will remain in place until after Allen’s sentencing next month, according to Indiana State Police spokesman Capt. Ron Galaviz.
Allen’s lawyers’ did not comment as they exited the courthouse.
Prosecutors, during the nearly four-week long trial, have claimed that Allen slit the throats of Abby, 13, and Libby, 14, while they were hiking on the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, north of Indianapolis, on Feb. 13, 2017.
Allen’s defense lawyers have argued he’s innocent and pushed the notion that there is too much reasonable doubt for a jury to convict.
The jury — seven women and five men — began deliberating Thursday after closing arguments in which Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said they should believe Allen’s own words when he repeatedly confessed in calls to his wife, in person and in writing to committing the heinous crime.
“I did it. I killed Abby and Libby,” Allen could be heard saying in a recording played for the jury.
But Allen’s lawyers called witnesses, including a psychologist, to suggest that he may have been losing his mind in jail when he made the admissions because of a 13-month stint in solitary confinement following his Oct. 26, 2022 arrest.
In his own closings, lawyer Bradley Rozzi said his client is innocent and that the evidence directly linking Allen to the crime was lacking, since there was no fingerprint, DNA or forensic evidence tying him to the slayings. Rozzi also noted that no witnesses identified him as the man seen on the hiking trail the day the girls disappeared.
The jury was shown rough cellphone video taken by one of the girls showing a man, who could be heard telling them, “Down the hill,” after they walked over the abandoned railroad bridge before going missing.
Prosecutors say a gun-wielding Allen forced the pair of teenagers off the trail and that he was going to rape them until a van passed by, causing him to change plans.
Jurors were shown grisly crime scene photos of the girls’ bodies with their throats slit about a quarter-mile from the Monon High Bridge, where they were found the next day.
The jurors and alternates have been sequestered since the beginning of the trial on Oct. 18 in the small city of Delphi in northwest Indiana. The panelists and special judge, Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, all came from a county on the other side of the state.
With Post wires
