Lawyers for Richard Allen have renewed their efforts to get jurors to hear their theory that Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were killed by multiple people as part of an Odinist ritual.
In court documents filed Wednesday and obtained by DailyMail.com, Allen’s lawyers claim the door has been opened to admit evidence that Judge Frances Gull had previously excluded because of testimony already in court.
Allen is charged with four counts in connection with the girls’ murders: two counts of murder, meaning killing during another crime, in this case kidnapping, and two counts of murder.
Richard Allen is charged on four counts in connection with the 2017 murders of Libby German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, in Delphi, Indiana
Allen’s attorneys filed a motion to admit evidence supporting their theory that Libby (left) and Abby were murdered by a group of people for the purpose of an Odinist ritual rather than by Allen.
If convicted, the 52-year-old married father of one faces a maximum prison sentence of 130 years.
His lawyers had previously tried to have their Odinist defense heard in court, filing lengthy documents and highlighting their case at a hearing in August.
Odinism is defined by the worship of the Norse god Odin – associated with war, death, wisdom and magic. The group has been characterized as a white supremacist sect that combines these beliefs with magical elements of neopaganism.
Now they claim the evidence from Crime Scene Investigator Ryan Olehy, who testified Monday and Tuesday, is reason for Judge Gull to reconsider her earlier decision to deny it.
During Olehy’s testimony, jurors heard and saw photos of the crime scene showing sticks, and in Libby’s case, a large branch, arranged over the girls’ bodies.
At their hearing in August, the defense presented the testimony of Dr. Dawn Perlmutter, who specializes in identifying ritual crime scenes, but the judge ruled that this evidence could not be presented to the jury.
The path in Delphi, Indiana, where Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were murdered on February 13, 2017
The defense argues that Crime Scene Investigator Ryan Olehy’s testimony opened the door for Judge Gull to reconsider her earlier decision to deny it.
During cross-examination, Bradley Rozzi pressed Olehy to admit there was “deliberateness” in the way the sticks were arranged. But the CSI agent resisted the attorney’s attempts to portray the crime scene as “strange” or to find anything other than an attempt to conceal the bodies by the placement of the sticks.
But according to the defense’s new filing, “The State of Indiana has provided an explanation as to what the sticks represent (concealing the bodies), and Richard Allen has the Sixth Amendment right to offer the jury his alternate theory as to why the sticks are aligned and arranged the way they are arranged.”
Rozzi also tried to get a concession from Olehy that blood found on a tree near the bodies was not just splatter due to a more deliberate marking. He called the tree ‘the F-tree’, suggesting that the letter was written in blood on the bark.
Once again Olehy resisted his efforts, stating that to him it simply looked like a bloodstain on the tree about four feet above the ground.
The girls disappeared while walking along Delphi’s Historic Trail. The final video taken on Libby’s cell phone showed a man in a blue Carhartt jacket and jeans approaching the two teens
Law enforcement officer Greg Ferency investigated the possibility of Odinist involvement before he was killed in an ambush at an FBI office in 2021, defense says
At their hearing in August, the defense presented the testimony of Dr. Dawn Perlmutter, who trained with the FBI and has worked with various local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and specializes in identifying ritual crime scenes.
Now they have reaffirmed: ‘After reviewing the crime scene photographs and other reports and documentation, Dr. Perlmutter included her assessment that the sticks on the bodies, the F-tree and other aspects of the crime scene were textbook examples of a ritual murder. related to Odinism/Norse paganism, including the use of sticks and blood on the tree to form runes and bind runes.’
The new motion states that law enforcement officials investigated the possibility of Odinist involvement as early as the second day after the girls were found, until 2021, when law enforcement officer Greg Ferency was killed in an ambush at an FBI office in 2021.
According to Allen’s attorneys, not allowing them to present their theory would be unfairly prejudicial, leaving “the jury with ONLY one explanation: the explanation given by the State of Indiana.”
Judge Gull has yet to rule on the motion.