IN - Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #163

[StarryStarryNight]

One thing I found interesting is that the defense said these "incriminating statements" were "inconsistent" from one another, which they basically say supports their claim that they were not truthful and due to his mental health decline.

I read that the defense said the statements were inconsistent with his prior statements to police. RA told LE earlier that he didn’t do it, now he’s telling folks he did kill them. So yea, that’s inconsistent.
The defense also said they were inconsistent because RA says one thing then his next sentence is about something else entirely. OK.
Just my thoughts, but I don’t think the prosecution would be pushing its case to the end of the plank, over these recorded confessions/admissions if they didn’t think they were compelling.
This sounds like lawyer-speak to me. They can’t very well come out and say “yeah, darn it. He’s confessing to everybody and his brother about it. Wish he would stop”.
I think the defense is concerned about it.

 

[TL4S]

I read that the defense said the statements were inconsistent with his prior statements to police. RA told LE earlier that he didn’t do it, now he’s telling folks he did kill them. So yea, that’s inconsistent.
The defense also said they were inconsistent because RA says one thing then his next sentence is about something else entirely. OK.
Just my thoughts, but I don’t think the prosecution would be pushing its case to the end of the plank, over these recorded confessions/admissions if they didn’t think they were compelling.
This sounds like lawyer-speak to me. They can’t very well come out and say “yeah, darn it. He’s confessing to everybody and his brother about it. Wish he would stop”.
I think the defense is concerned about it.

Agreed. I'm positive the defense is concerned about it, which is why they brought it up first at the hearing today, and why they're trying to reason it away with his mental health. Imo, his mental health probably does play a factor in what he says, one way or another.

According to MS, NMcL was impressive today. He pushed hard on the multiple confessions sale, which now everyone is understandably ready to buy. Yet many blew off NMcL back when he told the court they had "good reason to believe" others were involved. I'm really curious what NMcL will present if this goes to trial.

 

[Yemelyan]

Here's what I can find. Fwiw, I'm still not sure how to interpret it. MS describes the back and forth between lawyers, where the MSM seems to group statements together that I'm not sure where actually said consecutively.

Around the 1:16 mm of the MS episode, KGr describes (I'm only summarizing) that in Rozzi's closing statement, he states that the prosecution keeps bringing up the multiple confessions, but that it wasn't like that. He said that RA would say one thing, and then say another a moment later, that it wasn't like he broke down and told a consistent story.

And from this link:

Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told Judge Fran Gull that Allen, a 50-year-old father of two, had in fact made “multiple confessions to multiple people” since his arrest last October.

However, defense lawyer Bradley Rozzi argued that while Allen “made incriminating statements implicating himself in the crime,” he said they should be discounted in light of his client’s apparently flagging mental health. Rozzi and co-counsel Andrew Joseph Baldwin also claimed Allen’s alleged confessions were not consistent with his past denials.

“At one minute, Rick is saying one thing, and another minute he’s saying something else,” Rozzi said.

Accused Delphi Killer ‘Confessed Five or Six Times,’ Prosecutors Say

Agreed that the reporting on this is still murky. My speculation is that we are going to find out that his attorneys say he denied killing the girls to them and then later, after his "mental and physical decline," he made incriminating statements to other people that were inconsistent with what he had originally told his lawyers.

In order to be incriminating, I'm thinking his statement must contain information that is true about the crime; or, at least, not demonstrably false. I'm guessing his lawyers would not be so worried about this as they appear to be if his statements or admissions were inconsistent or contradictory about the facts of the crime?

I'm very interested to learn more about this.

 

[margarita25]

Fwiw:

Cognitive Decline as a Result of Incarceration and the Effects of a CBT/MT Intervention: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

This study primarily tests whether incarceration negatively affects cognitive functioning; namely emotion regulation, cognitive control, and emotion recognition. As a secondary interest, we test protective effects of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/Mindfulness ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

—-


If he’s guilty, I think it’s possible he’s had a cognitive/emotional decline (or whatever you want to call it) because he’s been caught, knowing he faces the rest of his life incarcerated, losing everything, forced to face his crimes and his own madness, etc. Maybe his already poor mental state has now been exacerbated.

People have breakdowns over much less, comparatively speaking.

Not to mention you’d have to be off your rocker to do something like this to begin with, and there are of course different types of people, killers, psychiatric predispositions, etc.

RE: having amenities such as “movies” on his iPad (which is ridiculous btw, but I’m not surprised because back in the day I drove by a prison and saw lines of TVs through the windows of the individual cells), he’s still living in confinement and is bottom of the prison totem pole/hierarchy as an alleged child murderer, so I don’t think he’s necessary thrilled just because he gets things like movies in prison.

Of course he could be fudging, but imo he looks so bad I tend to think it’s real, but who really knows, right?

Even if he has suffered a decline post-incarceration, that may not affect the charges at hand, unless of course this is used to offset the validity of the confessions, which could be a big deal, of course, but even then, there has to be more than a confession to convict someone, unless the confession(s) contain details only the killer would know.

Also, IF he is not guilty, well then that could send anyone completely over the edge.

There is also maaaaybe the possibility he has some sort of undiagnosed physical medical condition as well, which coincidentally coincides with all of this, or is perhaps exacerbated by the mental/physical effects of his incarceration.

Just saying I think anything is possible at this point, as far as his “decline” goes. Sometimes I see crime shows and then go to look them up, only to see the inmate has actually died from a medical condition.

Interesting discussion, whatever the case.

 

[Salah11]

Well he is eating , has medical help at hand so I’m still going with this is a choice on his part. All part of the “act” to gain sympathy which won’t work for the majority when you look at what he has been charged with.

Moo

 

[margarita25]

Well he is eating , has medical help at hand so I’m still going with this is a choice on his part. All part of the “act” to gain sympathy which won’t work for the majority when you look at what he has been charged with.

Moo

The thing about this for me, as far as the sympathy aspect goes, is I don’t know how someone in that situation could think having some sort of decline post-incarceration would make a jury any less inclined to convict in a case concerning the murder of two children. I guess I would think that that wouldn’t matter, that decline or not, people just aren’t going to have sympathy for a child murderer. I sure don’t, if he’s guilty.

So, in other words, it seems like common sense to understand that this wouldn’t work anyway. So why fake it when there’s no way that would make a difference...surely he doesn’t think faking a decline would gain actual sympathy and make a difference? Who knows, idk, but I certainly don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for someone in his situation, guilty or not, to have a total breakdown. And again, it makes no difference as far as culpability to me, and probably to a jury, whether he’s had a breakdown post-incarceration or not. I would think he would realize this. But maybe he thinks it would and could make a difference, but I doubt it. I think it’s pretty clear nobody is going to have sympathy for whoever killed Abby and Libby, should the evidence be strong enough to prove this.

 

[Salah11]

The thing about this for me, as far as the sympathy aspect goes, is I don’t know how someone in that situation could think having some sort of decline post-incarceration would make a jury any less inclined to convict in a case concerning the murder of two children. I guess I would think that that wouldn’t matter, that decline or not, people just aren’t going to have sympathy for a child murderer. I sure don’t, if he’s guilty.

So, in other words, it seems like common sense to understand that this wouldn’t work anyway. So why fake it when there’s no way that would make a difference...surely he doesn’t think faking a decline would gain actual sympathy and make a difference? Who knows, idk, but I certainly don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for someone in his situation, guilty or not, to have a total breakdown. And again, it makes no difference as far as culpability to me, and probably to a jury, whether he’s had a breakdown post-incarceration or not. I would think he would realize this. But maybe he thinks it would and could make a difference, but I doubt it. I think it’s pretty clear nobody is going to have sympathy for whoever killed Abby and Libby, should the evidence be strong enough to prove this.

I believe he wants to look weak and feeble so the jury won’t believe it could have been him. I mean the difference is quite stark.

Also logic with people like this don’t tend to work I have found as they are not normal people. Moo

 

[margarita25]

I believe he wants to look weak and feeble so the jury won’t believe it could have been him. I mean the difference is quite stark.

Also logic with people like this don’t tend to work I have found as they are not normal people. Moo

I hear ya, but he didn’t look like that in 2017, which is really what counts.

And there are plenty of weak looking weasels that harm children, that are convicted.

Agreed that logic isn’t always present.

Idk, seems a little over the top, for lack of a better term, to be a conscious ruse imo, thinking that losing a bunch of weight and looking weak would make a difference, but I could be totally wrong!

As usual in this case, anything is possible...will there ever be anything in this case perp-wise that is just fact and not debatable?

We’ll see what those documents say next week, and of course what comes up at trial.

 

[Salah11]

I hear ya, but he didn’t look like that in 2017, which is really what counts.

And there are plenty of weak looking weasels that harm children, that are convicted.

Agreed that logic isn’t always present.

Idk, seems a little over the top, for lack of a better term, to be a conscious ruse imo, thinking that losing a bunch of weight and looking weak would make a difference, but I could be totally wrong!

As usual in this case, anything is possible...will there ever be anything in this case perp-wise that is just fact and not debatable?

We’ll see what those documents say next week, and of course what comes up at trial.

Well if he has confessed multiple times and that’s allowed in I guess that will be fact

 

[girlhasnoname]

Let's not forget that the prosecution will probably choose to show that cringy bar video. You know where our decrepit RA bounced around the room like a Pogo stick one month before the murders.

JMO

Yes, or maybe the one where he is hamming it up for the camera in the bar with the wanted sketch poster right in the background.

 

[girlhasnoname]

The thing about this for me, as far as the sympathy aspect goes, is I don’t know how someone in that situation could think having some sort of decline post-incarceration would make a jury any less inclined to convict in a case concerning the murder of two children. I guess I would think that that wouldn’t matter, that decline or not, people just aren’t going to have sympathy for a child murderer. I sure don’t, if he’s guilty.

So, in other words, it seems like common sense to understand that this wouldn’t work anyway. So why fake it when there’s no way that would make a difference...surely he doesn’t think faking a decline would gain actual sympathy and make a difference? Who knows, idk, but I certainly don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for someone in his situation, guilty or not, to have a total breakdown. And again, it makes no difference as far as culpability to me, and probably to a jury, whether he’s had a breakdown post-incarceration or not. I would think he would realize this. But maybe he thinks it would and could make a difference, but I doubt it. I think it’s pretty clear nobody is going to have sympathy for whoever killed Abby and Libby, should the evidence be strong enough to prove this.

I think it's a ploy to establish some mental condition that would help explain away his many confessions of guilt. Like his attorney said in the hearing basically "he doesn't know what he's saying". Good luck with that one.

I've said it often over these threads since his staged photo op with his weight loss, drool and awkward hand position, it's a defense strategy pure and simple. Once the Defense knew of those confessions, you can bet they devised a strategy to mitigate them any way possible.

ALL MOO

 

[TL4S]

Even though Judge FG told the defense that she believed their argument was really about their own convenience, I don't think that necessarily means she thinks RA is faking it. Imo, the witnesses from IDOC confirmed his weight loss and possible deterioration, but they also confirmed that RA was safe where he is at, has accessed to medical care, and is being treated the same as the other inmates.

But, imo, the defense has a valid argument on the basis that RA is not being treated like other pre-trial detainees. We shall see how the court rules on that. I personally think RA's decline would have occurred, to some extent, regardless of where he was housed, but how can anyone know that for certain when he's been housed in a maximum security prison this entire time?

The fact that it's now been said that his decline happened after receiving legal paperwork doesn't surprise me, either. I don't think it has to mean he suddenly formulated a plan to fake it. Maybe reading it for himself some of the evidence against him, and/or details about the crime scene, sort of pushed him over the edge. Idk... All JMO.

 

[Salah11]

Even though Judge FG told the defense that she believed their argument was really about their own convenience, I don't think that necessarily means she thinks RA is faking it. Imo, the witnesses from IDOC confirmed his weight loss and possible deterioration, but they also confirmed that RA was safe where he is at, has accessed to medical care, and is being treated the same as the other inmates.

But, imo, the defense has a valid argument on the basis that RA is not being treated like other pre-trial detainees. We shall see how the court rules on that. I personally think RA's decline would have occurred, to some extent, regardless of where he was housed, but how can anyone know that for certain when he's been housed in a maximum security prison this entire time?

The fact that it's now been said that his decline happened after receiving legal paperwork doesn't surprise me, either. I don't think it has to mean he suddenly formulated a plan to fake it. Maybe reading it for himself some of the evidence against him, and/or details about the crime scene, sort of pushed him over the edge. Idk... All JMO.

But then the people in power can’t win can they?

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

But let’s not pretend If he got attacked his legal team wouldn’t be the first ones crying about it and how unfair it was.

He brutally murdered two teenager girls ( he has confused multiple times so I don’t feel like I should disclaimer this) so the consequences are there for his own protection.

 

[TL4S]

But then the people in power can’t win can they?

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

But let’s not pretend If he got attacked his legal team wouldn’t be the first ones crying about it and how unfair it was.

He brutally murdered two teenager girls ( he has confused multiple times so I don’t feel like I should disclaimer this) so the consequences are there for his own protection.

I agree. LE's testimony to RA's safety is valid, as well. I don't honestly have any idea whether the court will move him, or not. They know how to interpret the laws best, so I'm not even going to speculate.

The nature of these confessions are unknown to us, but both legal teams know what was there and will have to decide on their validity. They might well be the clencher for the prosecution. I hope so, but I'm not yet comfortable with it when I don't know if there is a window left open for the defense via the unique housing situation. Jmo.

 

[taylorss]

I read that the defense said the statements were inconsistent with his prior statements to police. RA told LE earlier that he didn’t do it, now he’s telling folks he did kill them. So yea, that’s inconsistent.
The defense also said they were inconsistent because RA says one thing then his next sentence is about something else entirely. OK.
Just my thoughts, but I don’t think the prosecution would be pushing its case to the end of the plank, over these recorded confessions/admissions if they didn’t think they were compelling.
This sounds like lawyer-speak to me. They can’t very well come out and say “yeah, darn it. He’s confessing to everybody and his brother about it. Wish he would stop”.
I think the defense is concerned about it.

OMG yes - it’s everything to the defense! their lifeblood is that the prosecution doesn’t just get to step up & make a bunch of claims - they have to present evidence. And in general evidence doesn’t get much better than multiple confessions!

I bet these so-called inconsistencies are nothing - imo speculation could be as minimal as RA told one person he was at the CS for two hours and someone else that he was there for just under two hours MOO

Imo I bet if there were any real, meaningful inconsistencies in RA’s various statements, his defense would not have been so quick to characterize then as self incriminating, but instead would have to tried to cast his statements as nonsense, delusions, fantasies - anything other than the worst thing possible (from defense POV), that which was discussed all throughout the hearing - multiple self-incriminating statements to multiple people
JMO

 

[FrostedGlass]

Those confessions: do they include the info that only the killer knows?

 

[StarryStarryNight]

Those confessions: do they include the info that only the killer knows?

It sure would be nice to know.

 

[Ravenmoon]

I didn't see that one? where will I find it?

When RA was first arrested, people found the video quickly.

We would have to go back to the threads that include news of his arrest.

A quick Google search will also quickly turn it up.


EBM

 

[x_files]

What bothers me the most in this case is how is it possible that nobody identified RA as the Bridge Video Guy.
The entire Delphy population must have watched the video and not even one person identified him? Family members, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, none?
With the low quality video, for a stranger, that would be normal. But when you see a person everyday you recognize the posture much better.
Would you not recognize a family member or a friend just because he has a hat, scarf, coat?
I think it should have been enough.
At this point I still have some doubts about RA being the right guy.
I hope they have better evidence than a unfired cartridge that conveniently appears at the crime scene...

Maybe they did recognize him but didn't trust the police or didn't want to be a snitch. Or were they in denial, there's no way their friend would be capable of killing two young girls.

 

[Megnut]

We all carry bias.

We imagine how a person might look and act, had they done this.

We might expect them to be furtive.

I just don't think we expect them to blend in, carry on, work beside us, go to church, discuss the crime, express concern...

Perfect disguise, hidden in plain sight.

Jmo