Found Deceased IN - Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #156

[LammyTheRobot]

Sadly, if I am on the jury, with what I have seen thus far, I am needing DNA evidence to convict because it looks like LE is totally inept. I don’t trust them to tell the truth or to handle the case properly.

*I mean this as if I were a juror and I were being presented with what LE has given us SO FAR*

Agree with you 100%.

 

[Ontario Mom]

Oh my, can you even begin to imagine the atmosphere in that courtroom with RA actually being there in person? Will the families be allowed to attend? This all still seems surreal to me after all these years.

I do hope they make media and the family priority, before just random curious members of the public.
Agreed about it feeling surreal. Big time.

jmo

 

[Le Singe]

RI - There’s a house up on a hill that can actually look down, the backyard can look down and see the crime scene.

Gemmie - That's pretty brazen of him as I'd think he'd know that. I can't imagine he didn't take walks there often to scope things out for when the time came to act on his evil feelings. You'd think he'd have been aware of that fact.

Respectfully snipped for focus by me just to use this as a jumping off point

Also this is just pure speculation on my part.

Does anyone think he maybe had more planned for the this crime, but at some point he started to lose control of the situation which required him to do what he did right there so close to where people knew the girls had gone (i.e. where people would be out looking in short order)?

I go back and fort a lot in my head about whether this was a very carefully planned meticulous thing OR a total spur of the moment random attack where he raged out. The seems to be some evidence pointing in each direction.

 

[newredtabby]

Ives grew up in Carroll County and has lived there his entire life.

He said, “I mean in real life, obviously people don’t kill people really all that often, and this crime scene – there’s a lot of evidence. There’s a lot of unique facts there and honestly, because it just didn’t seem – we’re not used to – in rural Indiana , normally if person A murders person B, it’s obvious who the suspects are and usually it’s pretty obvious how to prove they committed the crime”.

I think he’s referring to the fact that, in rural areas and Delphi in particular, as murders are so uncommon, they probably don’t need much investigation to reveal who the likely suspect is. As Delphi has such a small population, and most outsiders are probably unaware of the Monon Bridge and surrounding area, it’s unlikely to be someone who lived outside the community so they anticipated a small suspect pool. Combine that with a video, a voice, a lot of evidence and unique facts, I can well believe LE did think it would be a very short time before an arrest was made – maybe a few days, weeks or even months, but certainly not 5 1/2 years. JMO

Here's the thing. Ives was right about all that. The killer WAS in that small, local suspect pool. In fact he told you he was there, on the bridge, that afternoon. He lived a few miles away and never left town. The crime seen had ALL this evidence, and LE couldn't tie any of it to the guy they knew was there, at the spot of the abduction, on that afternoon, who looks and sounds like BG, and fits the profile of who they believed killed the girls? As more and more info comes out, this is making less and less sense. I see a defense lawyer having a field day with this. MOO

 

[UnapologeticallyAspie]

I’ve always found that his house in Peru abutted up to the Wabash River, and was only about .8 miles from KAK’s home in Peru.

mOO

 

[Yemelyan]

JMO.

For context: the conversation regarding RA placing himself on the Monon High Bridge wasn’t about whether the girls were thought to be in the area of the Monon High Bridge (MHB) on Feb. 13 — LE and the search team knew where the girls were dropped off and where they were supposed to be picked up.

The question was when — and WHY — RA would have told the state Conservation Officer (CO) that he had been on the Monon High Bridge. That alone SHOULD have rocketed him to the top of a suspect list … but it seemingly did not.

It’s unclear from media reports whether the date provided (Feb 13) in the article regarding the RA statement referred to when the girls were murdered (which was not known Feb 13; they were missing Feb 13) and/or when RA spoke with the CO and said he had been on MHB.

IMHO, RA had this conversation on Feb 13 between 5:30 - 11:59 pm— probably earlier in the evening rather than later for the reasons below.

The article you linked doesn’t refer to the girls being on the MHB proper. The trailhead where they were dropped off is for the Monon High Bridge Trail, and the article refers a few times to the girls having been in that area but not necessarily on the MHB itself:


(RSBM)

Technically, MHB itself was closed and not part of the trail system. The closure was clearly not enforced, but the decrepit state of MHB meant that many (if not most) visitors chose not to cross it because you could easily fall between planks and injure yourself if not fall to your death in places. Those new to the case were astonished that RA would place himself on MHB because it is astonishing: the already limited foot traffic on a February Monday afternoon would be even more limited on MHB itself!

The reason(s) IMO that RA made his statement to the CO early-to-mid evening on 2-13:
1). RA would have been hyper-aware of any potential that he had been spotted in the area (IMHO he was and he knew it).
2). RA knew the murder scene / final location of the bodies was away from the MHB.
3). RA knew the bodies would be found soon. They were off-trail but apparently not well hidden. It would be logical for searchers to focus on the immediate area where the bodies were found.
4). RA was NOT aware when he spoke with the CO of Libby’s snapchat photos — posted 2:07 pm on Feb 13 — placing the girls on MHB proper.
5). Considering #1-4, RA thought proper establishing a reason for being on the MHB earlier rather than later (after the bodies were found) would give him a better cover story if he had indeed been seen in the area.

RA would NOT have spoken to the CO about being on MHB proper IMO if he had any idea that LE would unravel that MHB was the initial physical encounter between the killer (“Bridge Guy”) and the girls. He was trying to cover himself, not implicate himself.

I appreciated the posts about RA being so brazen that he couldn’t help but insert himself into the search before they knew it was a murder investigation. The murders were brazen! He comped the funeral photos as a concerned local citizen. Perhaps we’ll learn that he attended vigils and services and donated to the ballpark to maintain a connection to these murders.

I agree the statement gave him a major rush on top of the thrill of the murders and DID make him the smartest guy in town. His sense of self-preservation was even higher, though, and he would not have placed himself in the vanishingly small subset of folks on MHB proper during the timeframe of the murders if he had known then what LE would soon learn (to paraphrase Doug Carter).

(The above assumes for discussion purposes that RA is BG and the murderer. None of this has been proven in a court of law.)

JMO.

I understood that the bigger topic within the conversation was when and why RA told a CO he was on the bridge (and I wasn't trying to answer that, though I generally agree with the conclusions you made), but I thought the original poster @Le Singe was also asking a different question as well - though I could be wrong. I thought the original post brought up something that is very interesting and nuanced, which is, when could it have been generally known by the public that the girls had been on the bridge? This question would inform significance into the timing of RA coming forward to a CO, though we can only speculate at this point.

I think from family interviews with GH and in podcasts like "Murder in My Family" and "Down the Hill" it seems to me (MOO) that Libby's dad did not know about snapchat pictures showing them on the bridge when he began searching around 3:15 but by the time the family was gathering at the police station later that night, the pictures were known. I wonder how fast word was spreading on social media, in town, and among volunteer searchers that they had been physically on the bridge itself. I do think that this information influenced how they searched that night (downstream towards Delphi instead of upstream, etc). And it will be interesting if we ever find out that it influenced when RA came forward about his whereabouts on that day.

 

[TL4S]

I understood that the bigger topic within the conversation was when and why RA told a CO he was on the bridge (and I wasn't trying to answer that, though I generally agree with the conclusions you made), but I thought the original poster @Le Singe was also asking a different question as well - though I could be wrong. I thought the original post brought up something that is very interesting and nuanced, which is, when could it have been generally known by the public that the girls had been on the bridge? This question would inform significance into the timing of RA coming forward to a CO, though we can only speculate at this point.

I think from family interviews with GH and in podcasts like "Murder in My Family" and "Down the Hill" it seems to me (MOO) that Libby's dad did not know about snapchat pictures showing them on the bridge when he began searching around 3:15 but by the time the family was gathering at the police station later that night, the pictures were known. I wonder how fast word was spreading on social media, in town, and among volunteer searchers that they had been physically on the bridge itself. I do think that this information influenced how they searched that night (downstream towards Delphi instead of upstream, etc). And it will be interesting if we ever find out that it influenced when RA came forward about his whereabouts on that day.

Here's an article from the night of February 13, 2017, about the search. While it doesn't answer the question about when anyone first knew of the bridge photo, it does suggest they knew by that night, and it tells us that the DNR officers were already present that evening, as well.

MISSING: Two 13-year-old Carroll Co. girls
The family contacted police around 5:30 p.m. and crews have been out searching the area around the old railroad bridge. The girl's cell phones are either dead or turned off.

Local police, deputies, firefighters and the Department of Natural Resources are canvassing the area the girls were last seen.

 

[gizmobtj]

I think we have to be careful of logical fallacies

The chances of anyone you are talking to over text/chat being murdered is tiny.

But obviously if someone is murdered, they were almost certainly talking with people on text/chat, one of whom may turn out to be criminal, or unusual. This is the trouble with our human instincts as to what is likely and unlikely and reading patterns into things, which were in fact independent events.

It's not that unusual for a murder to subsequently reveal hidden things in the victims life which seem too coincidental, but which turn out to be unrelated. e,g, a secret affair.

Also, viewed from the other side, the catfisher is likely to be busted sooner or later - the odd nature of this reveal feels coincidental, but of course, needn't be significant. So in other words, the murder caused the catfish to be revealed - the catfish does not cause the murder. Libby could have had her phone stolen, which cause the catfishing to be revealed, but then we wouldn't assume the two events are related.

I feel i haven't explained this well!

Totally agree with your points, especially the point about logical fallacy. One of the ways you can look at it is this-- if you are involved in a behavior that puts you at risk (the affair point, drug use, messaging strangers online, climbing mountains without a harness, etc.), it increases risk. I suppose that's why it's called risky behavior. If I am standing on the shore, I need to go to an aquarium to see a shark. But, if I am swimming, the chances of running into several increases significantly

 

[gizmobtj]

What i am wondering with the reporting is whether something else led them to RA, then they looked back and found he came forward early on, or the other way round?

I wonder if someone in the community developed suspicion?

They said "Allen’s statement was forgotten until recently when Indiana State Police became frustrated with the status of the Delphi investigation and asked a group of investigators to look over files related to the case."

So, the egg  probably came before the chicken.

Source: Investigators have known for years that the Delphi suspect was on the Monon High Bridge the day Abby and Libby were killed

DELPHI, Ind. (WISH) — Richard Allen, the man arrested in the 2017 double murder of Abigail Williams and Liberty German near Delphi, told a state conservation officer he was in the area on the day of the killings, but his report may have been considered unfounded, a police source tells I-Team 8...

www.wishtv.com

 

[mrtnira]

They said "Allen’s statement was forgotten until recently when Indiana State Police became frustrated with the status of the Delphi investigation and asked a group of investigators to look over files related to the case."

So, the egg  probably came before the chicken.

Source: Investigators have known for years that the Delphi suspect was on the Monon High Bridge the day Abby and Libby were killed

DELPHI, Ind. (WISH) — Richard Allen, the man arrested in the 2017 double murder of Abigail Williams and Liberty German near Delphi, told a state conservation officer he was in the area on the day of the killings, but his report may have been considered unfounded, a police source tells I-Team 8...

www.wishtv.com

I wonder if the police are saying that to cover for other discovered information? Misdirection is a tactic.

 

[gizmobtj]

<modsnip: Discussing/referenced removed posts is a violation of TOS> ..someone asked me where are the links supporting that he was an alcoholic.

Not to mention that we have no access to his medical diagnosis, but here are certain articles indicating that RA had an episode of domestic incident when drunk and was taken by his wife to the hospital for a medical evaluation (that drunk? Mental component? Medical consequences from drinking?$.

Suspect Richard Allen involved in ‘domestic incident’ two years before Delphi murders

Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, were murdered in 2017 after setting off on a hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail in their hometown of Delphi

www.independent.co.uk

This article is even more interesting. Tobe Leazenby said that RA was “drunk and wife took him to the hospital for medical evaluation”, same case, but:

There is a photo of young KA (with dark hair) and RA. What would you say about his eye color?

Delphi suspect faces murder charges with underlying offenses

Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen had his initial bail set at $20million after he was arrested for the 2017 slayings of two teenage girls in Indiana.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Goooooood point about the eyes .....

 

[Chelly]

They have released so little information and to me, it shows that they are doing everything they can to protect the case for trial. They have said all along that it's complicated.

This is true. Prosecutor McLean doesn't want any information released that will prevent a fair trial. Defense attorney doesn't want anything released that has a negative impact on his client.

So..... I am thinking both defense attorney and prosecutor McLean will motion to keep Probable Cause Affidavit sealed. If judge rules to unseal docs, I will be surprised (and very disappointed). Does anyone know or think unsealing the PC would benefit either side? BTW, Nov 22 hearing is a public hearing.

Petition seeks to 'Keep Abby and Libby arrest evidence sealed' in Delphi murder arrest

A petition on Change.org urges the prosecutor to keep the probable cause affidavit sealed in Richard Allen's arrest in the Delphi double homicide.

www.jconline.com

 

[gitana1]

Carter says "this investigation is far from complete..."

So LE continues to investigate the murders of Abby and Libby. I wonder what "far from complete" means. Probably there is a lot they are investigating yet. I wonder if that includes people.

That statement alone could lead me to think there is so much unknown, not just to the public, but to LE themselves.

Could be their current suspect has tentacles.

I wouldn't be surprised if another arrest came along, other players involved, or possibly other murders tied to RA.

Delphi suspect charged with 2 counts of murder; ‘Investigation far from complete’

DELPHI, Ind. — It’s a development loved ones of Libby German and Abby Williams have long prayed for: charges filed in connection to the Delphi murder investigation. Indiana State Police annou…

www.8newsnow.com

IMO it’s just a tactic they sometimes use to avoid having to release information early. That way they:
1. Avoid too much pretrial discussion of the facts which could taint a jury.
2. Are able to ensure any further evidence is clean, and valid, if more information comes out in the form of, for example, corroborating evidence like statements from people who might have heard him say something or have knowledge of something he did.

My feeling is there will be no further arrests for murder or kidnapping. I’m betting he was caught via familial DNA.

 

[gizmobtj]

Interesting! We know that the LE decided fairly quickly this was foul play (I just read back from thread one actually, and it seems it was pretty obvious to LE - so again I ask, how did the people who find the bodies not immediately realize what they had stumbled upon - per LE in earlier links and discussed many times in various threads).

RI says it seems to be a serial killer type thing. Ok? Why? What the hell was at the scene / how were the kids found that tipped off LE but made it less obvious or not obvious at all to searchers who found the girls???

No motivation?? I wonder, does that just mean the scene was disorganized and they couldn’t determine a motive?

Well, obviously, there was some kind of motivation ... I hate it when people say there was no motive. There always is -- it's just a matter of whether LE or even the guilty part knows what it is

 

[gizmobtj]

Not necessarily replying to you as much as the linked article.

But BBM part is just mind boggling. I can’t imagine anyone else was even on the bridge that day, yet the killer mentioned it that afternoon?? It says “right after” the murders? I swear if we find out he was covered in blood when he told them he was on the bridge my head might just explode.

I’m just trying to Understand how this took 5.5 years to solve? Seems 5.5 hours should have been plenty of time.

Wait ... There were plenty of people on the bridge and trails that day. That's how they got the first sketch ....

 

[Prime8]

Oh yeah, I’d def think they’ve met with him already in lockup! But that’s different - they’re limited by visiting hours, it’s uncomfortably on hostile territory, they probably worry it’s bugged etc.

if he’s shipped in for a hearing, they can keep him at the courthouse as long as they want & meet more comfortably … that’s all I meant by a “real” chance to meet with him
Moo

Bugging a meeting between someone and their lawyer is highly illegal. Honestly, a defense attorney would love nothing more than for LE to screw up to that degree. I'm not sure that they can "keep" him in the courthouse for as long as they want. I'm going to imagine that whoever has him in custody is in charge of when he leaves.

 

[Prime8]

I stumbled across something by accident that I THINK may be in our favor.

Apparently there's a recent pilot program allowing some trials to be broadcast. This was filed ~1 year ago so fairly recent. I do not know if the pilot is over or not. With the attention this one has gotten I'm thinking we just might be in luck. With that said... it was a 4 month trial so would have ended in April (Started in Dec '21). I'm trying to see if the pilot was a success or not, and if they decided to continue with this. So far I've just hit a wall.

Just take a lookiepoo at this:

Courts in five Indiana counties will be exempt from a rule within the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits judges from broadcasting court proceedings.

View attachment 380831

Unless 'i' rules this out. While RA obviously isn't a juvenile, the 2 victims were. I'm not sure if 'i' impacts broadcasting or not.
View attachment 380832

Pilot program allows select Indiana court trials to be broadcast

Courts in five Indiana counties will be exempt from a rule within the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits judges from broadcasting court proceedings.

www.wthr.com

PDF not embedded in above news article: https://www.in.gov/courts/files/order-other-2021-21S-MS-454.pdf

For additional information on the broadcast pilot project, visit on.in.gov/community-relations​

There was chat in the Murder Sheet group that the pilot program has ended and there was no plans to continue it.

 

[Prime8]

This is true. Prosecutor McLean doesn't want any information released that will prevent a fair trial. Defense attorney doesn't want anything released that has a negative impact on his client.

So..... I am thinking both defense attorney and prosecutor McLean will motion to keep Probable Cause Affidavit sealed. If judge rules to unseal docs, I will be surprised (and very disappointed). Does anyone know or think unsealing the PC would benefit either side? BTW, Nov 22 hearing is a public hearing.

Petition seeks to 'Keep Abby and Libby arrest evidence sealed' in Delphi murder arrest

A petition on Change.org urges the prosecutor to keep the probable cause affidavit sealed in Richard Allen's arrest in the Delphi double homicide.

www.jconline.com

I think that the judge will rule within the law, even if both sides agree that they both want it sealed. Our court system runs on transparency and openness, there needs to be an actual reason to keep them sealed. I don't think that tainting a jury reaches that bar.

 

[taylorss]

Bugging a meeting between someone and their lawyer is highly illegal. Honestly, a defense attorney would love nothing more than for LE to screw up to that degree. I'm not sure that they can "keep" him in the courthouse for as long as they want. I'm going to imagine that whoever has him in custody is in charge of when he leaves.

I’m talking about in the real world lol

 

[mrjitty]

IMO it’s just a tactic they sometimes use to avoid having to release information early. That way they:
1. Avoid too much pretrial discussion of the facts which could taint a jury.
2. Are able to ensure any further evidence is clean, and valid, if more information comes out in the form of, for example, corroborating evidence like statements from people who might have heard him say something or have knowledge of something he did.

My feeling is there will be no further arrests for murder or kidnapping. I’m betting he was caught via familial DNA.

This seems a good guess.