More than seven years after Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were killed in Delphi, Indiana, 52-year-old Richard Allen has been found guilty of their murders.
The case became known as the Delphi double murders, with a key piece of evidence coming from German’s Snapchat account.
On February 13, 2017, Williams and German disappeared were hiking through the Delphi Historic Trails when they disappeared. The following day, their bodies were discovered about 800m upstream from the Monon High Bridge.
Authorities identified a person of interest when they discovered a Snapchat video on Germans’ account that showed a man — later known as “Bridge Guy” — approaching the girls.
There was even audio that stemmed from the case, where a man can be heard saying: “Guys, down the hill.”
Police released the image in the hope of identifying Bridge Guy. However, despite true crime obsessives picking up the case, his ID remained a mystery.
How was Bridge Guy identified?
In September 2022 five years after the case, a volunteer worker sorted through tips. They flagged it with investigators which led to authorities to Allen.
After searching his house, police found knives and firearms, including a gun that had an unspent round near the crime scene.
Despite this, authorities couldn’t find DNA or forensic evidence that linked him to the crime scene.
As per ABC News, an arrest warrant that was unsealed in December 2022, the year Allen was arrested, revealed that he admitted to being on the same hiking trail as the teens that afternoon and was wearing clothes that were similar seen on Bridge Guy.
Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During the murder trial, Carroll Country prosecutor Nicolas McLeland told jurors that Allen was the man in German’s video.
“Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” McLeland told jurors.
“He kidnapped them and later murdered them.”
The prosecutor also added that Allen repeatedly confessed to the murders, in person, on the phone and in writing.
In one of the recordings played for the jurors, Allen can be heard telling his wife: “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”
Allen’s defence argued that his confessions were made during a “severe mental health crisis” as he was kept in solitary confinement following his arrest in 2022. The defence also called up a psychiatrist, who testified that months in solitary confinement could make an individual “delirious and psychotic”.
Allen’s defence, Bradley Rozzi concluded by stating that he is innocent.
Rozzi also highlighted that no witnesses identified Allen as the Bridge Guy, as well as noted that there was no DNA or forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene or the teens.
“He had every chance to run, but he did not because he didn’t do it,” he told the jurors, Associated Press reported.
In McLeland’s closing argument, the prosecutor drew the juror’s attention to an “unspent bullet” found at the crime scene, stating it “had been cycled through” Allen’s .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun.
An Indiana State Police firearms expert tied the round to Allen’s gun. However, Rozzi dismissed it as a “magic bullet” and said investigators made an “apples to oranges” comparison when it came to the unspent round to one fired from Allen’s gun.
Before the trial, Allen’s defence lawyers were going to argue that the teens were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of Odinists, members of a white nationalist group who follow a pagan Norse religion. However, the judge ruled against it, stating that the “defence failed to produce admissible evidence” for the argument.
After he was handed the verdict by the jury, reporters present in the courtroom said Allen “showed no reaction” but looked back at his family.
Allen faces up to 130 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 20.
Image source: AP Newsroom.
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