Delphi murder suspect wants prison confessions thrown out as prosecutors seek to discredit pagan cult theory
Defense attorneys say Richard Allen was in ‘mental distress’ when he claimed to have killed Abby Williams and Libby German
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The Delphi murders suspect wants his prison confession thrown out ahead of his trial next month, claiming that he was in mental distress when he confessed to killing two teenage girls.
Richard Allen confessed to the murders of Abby Williams, 13, and 14-year-old Libby German in 2022. Their bodies were discovered on 14 February 2017, a day after they had gone for a walk on abandoned train tracks near their homes in Delphi, Indiana.
Despite various suspects being investigated over the years, the case went mostly cold until Mr Allen’s arrest in October 2022, when ballistics on a bullet found at the scene were tied to him.
Ahead of his trial next month, his defence attorneys asked the court last week to block jurors from hearing his initial interrogations by Indiana state troopers, claiming that his civil rights were violated.
A separate filing, earlier this month, also asks that Mr Allen’s prison confession be omitted from the trial. His lawyers say that his confession came after five months of solitary confinement which saw his mental health deteriorate to the point where he ate his own feces.
The lawyers claim that prison officials asked other inmates at the Wabash Correctional Facility to keep logs of everything Mr Allen said and did in his cell. They argue that this amounted to a “sustained form of interrogation; one that lasted more than five months before he was finally broken,” WTHR reported.
On Tuesday, prosecutors filed motions to keep the confessions in, arguing that Mr Allen made the statements voluntarily without interrogation.
The prosecution also wants to throw out defence claims that an “Odinist pagan cult” was behind the girls’ deaths. Mr Allen made the claims last September, naming four suspects to investigators. His attorneys deny that he was part of the group.
Before the two girls vanished in February 2017, Libby posted photos of the pair walking along the Monon High Bridge Trail on the outskirts of Delphi to Snapchat. One post included a man dressed in blue jeans, blue jacket and a cap in the background, who police later identified as the prime suspect.
Mr Allen, who had lived in Delphi since 2006, became a suspect when officers linked a bullet found at the crime scene to Mr Allen’s gun.
It was later revealed that he had been interviewed by police in the days after the girls’ murders, and he admitted that he had been on the trail the afternoon they disappeared.
On 13 October 2022, Mr Allen voluntarily faced questions from Delphi police. Officers then obtained a search warrant for his home and seized his car.
A few weeks later, Mr Allen and his wife were told they could pick the vehicle up from a state police post in Lafayette.
His attorneys claim that police separated the couple and that a trooper questioned Mr Allen without reading his rights, or telling him that he could leave at any point.
Mr Allen’s attorneys also argue that officers failed to properly record their interviews with the suspect, or tell him that he was being recorded, knowing that they were going to arrest him for the murders, according to a motion filed with Carroll County Court and obtained by Fox 59.
During Mr Allen’s recorded questioning, one trooper reportedly tells him: “You’re guilty and I know it and I’m gonna f***ing prove it.”
In the defence’s filing over his prison confession, lawyers claim that Mr Allen became “delusional, paranoid and highly dysfunctional” following confinement with behaviours including “stripping off his clothes, drinking toilet water, covering himself with and eating his own faeces”.
It was in this state, the lawyers say, that Mr Allen made his multiple alleged confessions to both prison guards and his wife over the phone, with the admissions revealed at a court hearing in June 2023.
His defence argues that his remarks were not voluntarily given but instead as a result of coercion and they are therefore not admissible in court.
Mr Allen’s defence team also argues that police and prosecutors have ignored other evidence in the case.
Mr Allen’s attorneys have previously said that details from the crime scene pointed to a possible Odinist cult killing with symbols painted in the blood of one of the victims allegedly discovered, according to court filings obtained by The Independent last year.
The lawyers also claimed there were sticks placed over the girls’ bodies, in line with the pagan practices linked to the Nordic-inspired rituals.
Investigators abandoned the Odinist line of inquiry around March 2017, despite the evidence at the scene, according to the defence filing from September 2023.
Three investigators looked into the pagan connection including Rushville assistant police chief Todd Click.
Prosecutors are now also trying to discredit his involvement, the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported on Tuesday.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland is arguing that those records will show untruthful behaviour or credibility issues, which could impact his Odinist cult claims, the outlet said.
Mr McLeland’s office, which previously described the cult theory as “fanciful”, is yet to respond to a request for further comment from The Independent on Wednesday. Mr Allen’s attorney, Andrew J Baldwin, is also yet to respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Mr Allen’s trial is set to begin on 13 May.