Delphi double murderer Richard Allen sentenced to 130 years in prison
Richard Allen, the man convicted in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls who disappeared in Delphi, Indiana, was sentenced Friday to 130 years in prison.
Allen was sentenced to 65 years for each death, totaling 130 years in prison. His 760 days served since his arrest will count towards his sentence.
An Indiana jury in November convicted Allen in the murders of 14-year-old Liberty "Libby" German and 13-year-old Abigail "Abby" Williams, who had vanished during a hike in Delphi in 2017.
The jury of seven women and five men spent about 19 hours deliberating over the course of three days before finding Allen, 52, guilty of all counts.
The sentencing lasted less than an hour. The families of Libby and Abigail addressed the public and thanked the jurors for delivering a verdict of the maximum sentence.
Mike Patty, Libby’s grandfather, thanked the community for supporting his family and the investigative team for working towards justice for almost eight years.
"I want to send out my appreciation that justice has been serviced for the girls," Patty said.
"I’ll always be grateful."
Investigators reflected on the work behind the case. "A form of justice was serviced, but it does not bring Abby and Libby back," Sheriff Tony Liggett said.
"They did not deserve this." Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter thanked the families of the victims as well as Delphi residents. He said this verdict starts a new chapter for the community. "Let’s heal," Carter said.
Delphi murders: Timeline of events
On Feb. 13, 2017, Abby and Libby were dropped off at a hiking trail on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi When they failed to meet Libby’s father later in the day, they were reported missing.
They were found dead about a mile from where they were last seen with cuts to the throat, according to prosecutors. Police investigated thousands of leads, and released multiple composite sketches of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts. Audio evidence from Libby’s cell phone revealed an unknown man had told the girls to go "down the hill."
Libby also recorded a short Snapchat video of a man who police believed was the killer. Although police circulated the photo and audio just days after the killings, the case ran cold for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Allen lived in Delphi and worked at a local CVS pharmacy until a clerk related to the investigation in September 2022 noticed he had placed himself at the scene of the killings. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been on that trail around the time the girls were thought to have been killed.
He told them he had been walking in the area and seen three "females" near a bridge but hadn’t spoken to them. On Oct. 13, 2022, Allen was interviewed again after police searched through former suspects. Allen was arrested after police matched an unspent cartridge found between the girls’ bodies to a pistol recovered from his home during a police search.
Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, 2022, and was charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the charges to include two additional counts of murder. Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the course of the trial, the prosecution highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions while incarcerated: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the warden, and other prison employees and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions for the jury.
The defense doubted the confessions and said they were made involuntarily and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time.
Monica Wala, the former lead psychologist at Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified he initially told her he was innocent but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.
According to WTHR, Wala testified that Allen had told her, "I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry," and that he originally planned to sexually assault the victims but ran away when he saw a van nearby and that he had cut the girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.
Allen’s lawyers previously suggested that the girls were killed as part of a pagan ritual sacrifice and accused police of ignoring evidence from the crime scene. In a search warrant request in March 2017, an FBI agent claimed the girls’ bodies appeared to have been "moved and staged" at the crime scene. That theory was not heard by the jury per the judge’s ruling. Thompkins said Allen’s conviction could be reversed if an appeal finds the jury did not hear a fair amount of evidence. The defense could file an appeal within 30 days of the sentencing.
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