Jurors in Delphi have been told that the “mechanical fingerprint” left on an unused cartridge found between the bodies of murdered teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams could not have been left by the gun seized from the man who is accused of killing them.
As Indiana’s long-awaited trial of Richard Allen entered its sixteenth day at the Carroll County Courthouse, the court heard a wealth of testimony from defense experts.
Allen, 52, has been charged with four counts in connection with the murders of best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, two for murder and two for murder, murder committed during another crime, in this case kidnapping.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 130 years.
The only physical link between Allen and the crime scene in the woods near the Monon High Bridge trail where the girls went for a walk from which they would never return on February 13, 2017, was an unused cartridge found in the dirt near Libby’s foot.
Richard Allen. 52, is charged with murder for the 2017 deaths of teenage best friends Libby and Abby
Allen is accused of killing best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, after they took a walk outside their hometown of Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017.
According to the state who called their own firearms examiner during their case, the scratches and dents on the cartridge are irrefutable evidence that, although never fired, it was cycled through, the Allen’s Sig Sauer P226 40 caliber seized from his home has been taken. prior to his arrest on October 26, 2022.
But today the defense has withdrawn with its own expert.
Dr. Eric Warren took the stand Tuesday afternoon to say he could find no “individual marks” on the cartridge that matched the marks made by the ejector, extractor or chamber of Allen’s gun.
In fact, the state’s expert, Michelle Oberg, was only able to replicate the marks on the unused cartridge by firing test cartridges from the gun. Cycling alone did not yield sufficiently striking figures for analysis.
According to Warren Oberg, it was “comparing apples and oranges” and he should have used unused cartridges for comparison.
The suspect was first seen in footage taken on one of the girls’ mobile phones before they were killed
Allen was held in the maximum security unit of the Westville Correctional Facility for 13 months, in solitary confinement and often under suicide watch.
State’s Attorney James Luttrull Jr attempted to undermine the doctor’s evidence during aggressive cross-examination, during which he determined that Warren had not prepared an expert report and never examined the cartridge himself, but instead relied on a “handful of photographs” from which he drew his conclusions pulled.
Later, forensic computer analyst Stacy Eldridge took the stand in an attempt to cast doubt on the state’s timeline, drawn largely from evidence taken from Libby’s cell phone which, they allege, stopped moving and never moved on February 13, 2017 at 2:32 p.m. . again.
According to Eldridge, she found evidence that the phone had gone in and out of reception during the time Libby was known to be walking the trail, then left reception at 5:45 pm on February 13 and reconnected the next morning at 4:33 am with the transmission tower. , when several texts, voicemails and missed calls suddenly filled the phone.
Eldridge suggested that the lack of reception could not be explained other than by an external factor, such as that the phone – found under Abby’s body – was in a metal building or that someone was using a signal blocking device.
Family members of Liberty German and Abigail Williams listened as Indiana State Police Capt. Doug Carter made the announcement during a news conference in Delphi, Indiana, Monday, October 31, 2022
At the beginning and end of this period, Eldridge claimed that she identified a moment when someone plugged in and unplugged a pair of wired headphones.
According to the defense, this means that the phone was “handled by human hands” at a time when Allen could not be placed at the scene of the crime.
But under cross-examination by 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 falsely recorded.
She also admitted that the most likely explanation for the phone being in and out of reception was that the phone had simply lost service, as had been happening intermittently throughout the day due to the remote and wooded location where the phone was being used. found.
The defense has focused heavily on the conditions in which Allen was held pending trial.
For thirteen months he was held in the highest security unit of the Westville Correctional Facility, in solitary and often under suicide watch.
The abandoned Monon High Bridge outside Delphi, Indiana, where Abby and Libby were murdered
The two best friends were last seen alive during their fateful walk to Monon High Bridge in February 2017
It is part of a concerted effort to convince the jury that the multiple confessions Allen made during this period could not be relied upon, but that they were instead the product of a man suffering from a depressive disorder with psychosis due to the stress of his circumstances.
This morning they emphasized the point again with the testimony of Harvard psychiatrist and solitary confinement specialist Dr. Stuart Grassinan.
According to Grassinan, the bizarre behavior Allen exhibited mainly between April and June 2023, including smearing his own feces on his cell and eating it, were “textbook examples” of psychosis or delirium caused by the “extremely lonely” and “toxic ‘ environment of long-term detention in solitary confinement.
The defense is expected to rest tomorrow.