Richard Allen was “severely mentally ill” when he made a series of confessions in which he admitted to killing Delphi teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams.
Richard Allen was “severely mentally ill” when he made a series of confessions in which he admitted to killing Delphi teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams.
Jurors in the small Indiana town of Carroll County Court heard expert testimony Friday from Dr. Deanna Dweinger, who oversees mental health services for the state’s Department of Corrections.
Under questioning by Bradley Rozzi, Dweinger told the court that Allen’s 13 months in solitary confinement in the most secure unit at the Westville Correctional Facility, Westville, some 76 miles from Delphi, would have been “toxic” for a man already suffering from depression suffered. tension.
Allen, 52, has been charged with four counts related to the Feb. 13, 2017, slayings — two for murder and two for murder, meaning murder committed during another crime, in this case kidnapping.
If convicted, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 130 years.
Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, were murdered outside their hometown of Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017
In his opening statements at the start of the highly anticipated trial, lead attorney Andrew Baldwin promised the jury, “You will see the state’s case fall apart before your eyes.”
But he got off to a stuttering start with the first full day of defense evidence, when he, Rozzi and Jennifer Auger passed through 10 witnesses and barely threw a punch.
In fact, at least two of their witnesses supported important aspects of the state’s case.
In response to questions from the jury – in Indiana jurors can ask questions after direct and cross-examination – Dr. Dweinger was forced to admit that even someone in the midst of a psychotic break could put “truths” into confessions.
She also revealed that she and her colleagues had lengthy discussions about the veracity of Allen’s apparent breakdown, which peaked between April and July 2023, and wondered whether he was feigning it for attention or for other purposes, such as a prison transfer or visiting his wife. .
Hammond Police Department Trooper Christopher Goote testified before Dweinger.
The two best friends were last seen alive during their fateful walk to Monon High Bridge in February 2017
The prosecution believes Allen’s deteriorating mental state in prison was a ploy, while his defense argued it was due to his long time in solitary confinement.
The suspect, who became known as ‘Bridge Guy’, was first seen in footage captured on one of the girls’ mobile phones before they were killed
He was one of the officers who took local man Brad Weber’s original statement about when he came home from work the day the girls went missing.
Weber’s story is crucial because he lives at the end of a private driveway that runs under the side of the bridge from which the girls were kidnapped.
If he went straight home, as he claims, it would appear to confirm a detail from one of Allen’s prison confessions that the prosecutor is convinced “only the killer would have known.”
Allen told prison psychologist Monica Wala that he intended to rape Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, but “saw a van” and “got scared” so he ordered the girls across the creek and shot them instead kill.
Weber drives a Ford Econoline van. He testified yesterday that he clocked into work at 5:14 a.m. and clocked out at 2:02 p.m. and that it took him about 20 to 25 minutes to get home, placing him close to the accident scene at the time the girls were taken.
Libby’s Bridge Guy video was recorded at 2:13 p.m. and the last recorded movement on her iPhone health app was at 2:32 p.m.
The defense had believed Goote would tell a different story because Weber, they allege, gave inconsistent accounts of his movements that day and initially told officers he was going to check the ATMs he owns before going home.
But attorney Auger was stunned and stunned when Goote took the stand and testified that Weber simply “went home” to him — a claim that matches the state’s timeline.
Later, former Fire Chief Darrell Sterrett told the court about the searches conducted around Delphi and near the trail on the afternoon and night of Feb. 13, 2017.
The defense’s theory is that the girls were not found until the next day because they were not there, but were taken somewhere else and then brought back to be killed.
They claim that the area where the bodies were eventually found – upstream of the bridge and in dense forest – had been thoroughly searched the night before.
But Chief Constable Sterrett took the stand and told the court that the ‘hurried’ search party consisted of widely spaced searchers working in dense bush and darkness and not in a grid formation.
The abandoned Monon High Bridge outside Delphi, Indiana, where Abby and Libby were murdered
The path in Delphi, Indiana, where Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were murdered on February 13, 2017
He stated that their efforts were mainly focused on the southwest side of the bridge – the opposite direction from where the bodies were ultimately found, another statement that reinforced the state’s position.
At the time he told the court: ‘I believed they were sitting somewhere cold and scared waiting for us to find them.’
After a day where the defense struggled to make the impact they were looking for, they suffered three disappointments.
Judge Frances Gull denied a request to have an FBI agent who interviewed Weber in February 2017 testify remotely via Zoom, and she dismissed two motions seeking to reintroduce evidence that the girls were victims of several attackers who took part in an Odinist ritual.
Addressing the attorneys after dismissing the jury, Gull said, “The case law on third-party defendants is clear. There must be a connection [to the defendant]. There is no connection.’
The process continues.