Jury seated for Indiana trial of suspect in 2017 killings of 2 teen girls
FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The last of 16 jurors convened Tuesday for the murder trial of a man charged in Indiana murder of two teenage girls killed in 2017 during a winter walk.
Twelve jurors and four alternates were chosen Monday and Tuesday in Fort Wayne, Indianato hear Richard Allen’s trial in the murders of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German.
Allen, 52, is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the slayings of eighth-graders from Delphi, Indiana, known as Abby and Libby. If convicted, Allen faces up to 130 years in prison.
Jurors will be sworn in Thursday for the trial in Delphi, a community of about 3,000 people about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Opening statements are scheduled for Friday morning.
The process is expected to take a month. Jurors will be locked up throughout the proceedings, watched by bailiffs and banned from using mobile phones or watching news broadcasts.
Prosecutors said they plan to call about 50 witnesses, while Allen’s attorneys expect to call about 120 people to the witness stand.
Allen, a pharmacy technician who had lived and worked in Delphi, was arrested in October 2022.
A family member had dropped the teens off at a hiking trail just outside Delphi on February 13, 2017, but the two friends failed to show up at the agreed-upon pick-up location later that day. They were reported missing that evening and their bodies were found the next day in a rugged, wooded area near the trail.
Within days the police were released files found on Libby’s cell phone – two grainy photos and audio of a man saying “down the hill” – which they believed had captured the killer.
Investigators released a sketch of the suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019. They also released a short video showing the suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge.
After years of failing to identify a suspect, investigators said they went back and looked at “previous tips.”
Allen had been interviewed in 2017. He told the officer that he had been walking on the tracks the day the girls went missing and that he had seen three “females” at another bridge but had not spoken to them. According to an arrest affidavit, he said he didn’t notice anyone else because he was distracted by a stock quote on his phone.
Police interviewed Allen again on October 13, 2022, when he again claimed to have seen three “juvenile girls” during his 2017 walk. Investigators searched Allen’s home and seized a .40-caliber handgun. Prosecutors said tests showed that an unspent bullet found between the teen’s bodies had “cycled through Allen’s gun.”
According to the affidavit, Allen said he had never been where the bullet was found and “had no explanation as to why a shot through his firearm would occur at that location.”
The case is subject to a gag order approved by Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, the special judge overseeing the trial. Allen’s trial has been repeatedly postponed after evidence was leaked. Allen’s public defenders withdrew and were later reinstated by the Indiana Supreme Court.