GUILTY Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #216

[Warwick7]

That’s the beauty of a circumstantial case. Richard Allen was convicted on a whole raft of evidence, not merely his confessions –

1. He unexpectedly cancelled plans to have lunch out with his parents and sister. He opted not to adduce evidence as to why, when something clearly disrupted the civilized course he headed out on that morning. He made that relevant. No one wanted or needed to know what he was doing four hours before the crime, but that’s where it started for him. Something went wrong that morning when he left his parents and went and purchased beers.
2. He went home, got a coat on and headed to the bridge that the girls were abducted from. He does not deny that his car with distinctive wheel rims is captured on CCTV at 1.27pm, which tallies with his Feb 16th account of arriving at 1.30pm. Had that been him leaving, driving westbound, that would mean he had been parked somewhere east of the CCTV camera, yet he introduced no evidence of an alternative old building with parking space. Therefore, the CCTV corroborates his original account, which means he drove a very long and unusual quiet country route to get to the trails, which tallies with someone wanting to avoid being spotted driving through town.
3. He parked his car in an obscure location next to a disused building, which fits with not wanting his car to be noticed by others who came to park their cars and walk.
4. He entered the trails not via the trail head, but via lesser-used tracks leading from the disused building.
5. He changed his times of arrival and departure by two hours, five years later, with no explanation for why he now had a better memory of his timings, which is distancing from the time of the crime. He would not have known if police would find evidence of him being on the trails from other witnesses’ photos or recordings, or trail cams, so he avoided being caught in a lie when he first came forward.
6. With his original timings, his path would have crossed with Abby’s and Libby’s. He would have seen them given the time that he was there but he denied seeing them, which is distancing behavior.
7. He did not see bridge guy on the bridge, which he would have done, with his original timings.
8. His phone at the time was the only phone missing from his collection of old phones.
9. There was no outright denial from him that the bridge guy photo was him.
10. His range of attire included the same clothing worn by bridge guy.
11. His build and frame were comparable to bridge guy’s.
12. After the murders he didn’t come forward for three days to say he had been on the bridge that afternoon. But we know he was keeping an eye on the news, because he contacted police on the fourth day, the day after they released the bridge guy photo. He also admitted he had thought about it a lot since 2017; leakage.
13. He opted not to have police come to his house in Feb 2017, which could be seen as not wanting to alert his neighbors at a time when police were asking if people recognised bridge guy.
14. He changed his height and weight on his fishing licence 2 months after the murders.
15. His wife did not testify that she didn’t recognize it to be his photograph, his build, his stance, or his voice.
16. His wife offered no alternative narrative of what he’d told her about his day. Even during his period of torment, she didn’t reassure him and remind him of his first ever alibi to her. She revealed doubts about him in the interview room in October 2022.
17. He knew about a van appearing and being visible from the scene of his intended rape that the police weren’t even aware of. According to the FBI (apparently) they thought the van wasn’t there at that time. The timing according to the van driver who had no knowledge of Libby’s phone movements fits with RA being spooked and then Libby’s phone moving. That timing in his confession couldn’t have been in the discovery or on internet forums because police only investigated it after his confession, and RA indeed adduced no evidence of that either.
18. He had box cutters, a blade that matched the depth of the wounds, and the same ammo as that found at the crime scene.
19. He wasn’t seen leaving the bridge on the trails by anyone. Ergo he hid in the trees, as he said he did.
20. His detailed confession included what he planned, felt and saw, reasoning, logical sequence, as well as humility and self-awareness, as opposed to being I did this, this and this. The false confessions expert put on by the defense identified those as the distinguishing features of a real memory.

The quoted info in your post originates with an organisation (Innocence Project) who will know exactly how many cases involving false confessions have been overturned with DNA evidence. Yet they don’t divulge the number of cases, while making reference to a percentage of them. It could be 25% of 12 cases, or 100 cases. The numbers matter, so why hide the exact figure and give a meaningless percentage?

Then there is willy-nilly language of “many” of an already meaningless percentage of cases where false confessions involved crime-details not made public. Again, they will have the hard numbers, so why hide how “many”? They chose not to state the number, so one should question if the number of cases would not really be that impactfull.

Drilling down deeper, are their figures (that they chose not to make public) based on really old convictions dating back say fifty years, or more recent? Do they reflect times when police were able to get away with more dubious practices and recording of interviews was not commonplace? Did the police divulge the information to the confessor? Was the confessor a career criminal already serving time for the same type of offense? How nuanced was the information gathered? - “I think I shot him”, or more comparable to “I was disturbed by a van and so I immediately moved my victims”? - corroborated by phone movement and later by police investigating the time the van arrived

It looks very much like hyperbole to me.

I don’t doubt that they have done some invaluable work, but this new industry of promoting false-narratives that every other high-profile case is a far-reaching conspiracy against the defendant, is not only nonsensical when one stands back and sees it for the trend it has become, spilling over from social media onto the streets outside courts so that juries have to be shielded from it, it’s ignorant of the harm it brings to the victims’ families, and is hugely damaging to society, devaluing law enforcement and disrespecting the jury system.

This jury spent time away from their own families and considered and rejected the defendant’s case over many days that his 60+ confessions were false and a product of mental illness and maltreatment, from top to bottom and sideways, with hours of video evidence, and there is no indication that they did not understand the meaning of a reasonable doubt.

JMO

One could also add, although he said he was on his phone checking stock while on the bridge, it was a lie. His phone was not in the geofence. His phone was not there. ( unless you did add this and I just completely missed it).

 

[Warwick7]

Any idea why he didn't change his clothing description in 2022?
As you said. He knew by then that the man in the blue jacket and jeans was the main suspect. To my knowledge he never told Dulin what he was wearing in the 2017 grocery store car park interview.

He changed his timeline after they found the lost tip. Why not his clothes?

I feel his wife identified him by his clothes and stature. He couldnt get out of that one. She prolly said: "Hun that's you!!! You need to call the police. They think you've got info they need."

 

[k-mac]

One could also add, although he said he was on his phone checking stock while on the bridge, it was a lie. His phone was not in the geofence. His phone was not there. ( unless you did add this and I just completely missed it).

yes thats 2 really important things regarding his phone.

1/. he did not have his phone on him at the trails. That shows premeditation.Yet lied he did have it.
2/. he ditched the phone. why? something was on that phone. Has to be incriminating conversations or incriminating google searches.


The darkweb and KK feels like a side problem LE couldn't solidify a resolution.

moo

 

[Warwick7]

And that is the other baffling detail.
How did he miss the phone?
Surely one of the first things he would've asked them was to hand over their phones?
One theory I had was that Libby had two phones. A second that her family didn't know about?
She handed that second phone to Allen early in the attack and that satisfied him.
To support my theory. One of the photos of Abby on the bridge posted on social media was never found on Libby's phone. Was it taken on a second phone?
Also, the defense got themselves in a tizz about other unaccounted phones found in the area from the geofence data. I believe it's the basis of their odinist theory?
I think there were other phones in the vicinity. The aforementioned second phone owned by Libby and Allen's phone or phones that nobody knew about. You know the one that can be used to check stocks and shares but not register on a phone tower. The one he's got Kegan Kline on speed dial!

I like the reasoning. It's just that I think the reason that picture is missing it has something to do with Snapchat, I just can't remember all the details. But it seemed like after I read about it, it was quite self-explanatory. And also to me, it would be so weird for Libby to be carrying around two phones while Abby had none. And it was brought out in MSM that they shared Libby's phone it was kind of like their phone together. As for how in the world did he miss her phone? I think he demanded a phone and he was told they didn't have one. And it took it at face value. M00

 

[somequestions]

Ah, found what I've been looking for.

Re. Richard Allen's Oct 13th 2022 interview -

This is from Lawyer Lee's notes from watching the interview video in court,

timestamp 12.11
"So when he sort of described how he came to go to the police and it started out with 'they asked anyone who was there in the park that day when the girls were missing, when they were abducted, if you were there come in and talk'. He said 'I told my wife and she said "well they want to talk to everybody"' so he went to the Sheriff's station and voluntarily put his name and information down. So a couple of days later Officer Dulan calls him and at the time, RA is in his car..."

What he doesn't mention of course is the photo and appeal they had released:

15th Feb 2017

ISP: "We're going to track them down"

Indiana State Police released the photo below on Wednesday. They say this man was on the Delphi Historic Trail around the time that Abby and Libby were there. They want to speak to him about what he may have seen.

WRTV​

15 February 2017 ·
DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS MAN?
Indiana State Police say he was walking on the Delphi Historic Trail around the same time as Abigail Williams and Liberty German were there on Monday.
If you can identify the person in this photo or were parked in the lot contact the Carroll County Sheriff's Department at (765) 564-2345 or Indiana State Police at (765) 567-2125.

That was a great segment with Lawyer Lee. It puts Richard Allen's interrogation into perspective.

According to this, Richard Allen decided to go to the police station because his wife suggested it. They watch Dateline together. Police were asking for anyone who had been out on the Monon High Bridge trail that day to come forward. This is certainly different than the theory that Richard Allen saw his picture on the trail cam on February 15th and decided he needed to come forward.

He went to the police station too. He did not decide to forget about it or tell his wife he would get to it later. He did not go to the bar or drive into the police station parking lot and then leave. He went to the police station and went inside to talk face to face with police because his wife suggested it. I thought he would have called the tipline instead, especially since he must think phone calls are not recorded.

This case certainly stands out for how much it appears the killer helped the police solve it.

Is the story told by Lawyer Lee in the video wrong about how Richard Allen ended up talking with the conservation officer? I always thought he just called the tipline, and then a meeting was set up later, but Richard Allen ended up meeting the conservation officer at the grocery store. Did Richard Allen actually go to the police station to talk about the case?

 

[KentuckyMama]

I like the reasoning. It's just that I think the reason that picture is missing it has something to do with Snapchat, I just can't remember all the details. But it seemed like after I read about it, it was quite self-explanatory. And also to me, it would be so weird for Libby to be carrying around two phones while Abby had none. And it was brought out in MSM that they shared Libby's phone it was kind of like their phone together. As for how in the world did he miss her phone? I think he demanded a phone and he was told they didn't have one. And it took it at face value. M00

Or maybe they said they must have lost it crossing the creek. Just a thought.

 

[Han]

If you can identify the person in this photo or were parked in the lot contact the Carroll County Sheriff's Department

What do you think they mean, “parked in the lot.” What lot do they mean?

 

[Tortoise]

What do you think they mean, “parked in the lot.” What lot do they mean?

Here's a video Lauren made several weeks ago. If you start at about 1.49 she drives to the trails and shows the parking lot for people who are visiting the trails.

 

[Davemac1]

Or maybe they said they must have lost it crossing the creek. Just a thought.

My initial thoughts was the phone was lost somewhere in the woods and the police managed to find it.
I was amazed when I heard it was underneath a shoe under one of the girls.
They managed to conceal it by the looks of things.

 

[Boxer]

MOO He would not take the phone, its a tracking device.
He did not know there was some video on it. Without LG taking that video the phone would not have been importsnt only a liability.

 

[Justice101]

That’s the beauty of a circumstantial case. Richard Allen was convicted on a whole raft of evidence, not merely his confessions –

1. He unexpectedly cancelled plans to have lunch out with his parents and sister. He opted not to adduce evidence as to why, when something clearly disrupted the civilized course he headed out on that morning. He made that relevant. No one wanted or needed to know what he was doing four hours before the crime, but that’s where it started for him. Something went wrong that morning when he left his parents and went and purchased beers.
2. He went home, got a coat on and headed to the bridge that the girls were abducted from. He does not deny that his car with distinctive wheel rims is captured on CCTV at 1.27pm, which tallies with his Feb 16th account of arriving at 1.30pm. Had that been him leaving, driving westbound, that would mean he had been parked somewhere east of the CCTV camera, yet he introduced no evidence of an alternative old building with parking space. Therefore, the CCTV corroborates his original account, which means he drove a very long and unusual quiet country route to get to the trails, which tallies with someone wanting to avoid being spotted driving through town.
3. He parked his car in an obscure location next to a disused building, which fits with not wanting his car to be noticed by others who came to park their cars and walk.
4. He entered the trails not via the trail head, but via lesser-used tracks leading from the disused building.
5. He changed his times of arrival and departure by two hours, five years later, with no explanation for why he now had a better memory of his timings, which is distancing from the time of the crime. He would not have known if police would find evidence of him being on the trails from other witnesses’ photos or recordings, or trail cams, so he avoided being caught in a lie when he first came forward.
6. With his original timings, his path would have crossed with Abby’s and Libby’s. He would have seen them given the time that he was there but he denied seeing them, which is distancing behavior.
7. He did not see bridge guy on the bridge, which he would have done, with his original timings.
8. His phone at the time was the only phone missing from his collection of old phones.
9. There was no outright denial from him that the bridge guy photo was him.
10. His range of attire included the same clothing worn by bridge guy.
11. His build and frame were comparable to bridge guy’s.
12. After the murders he didn’t come forward for three days to say he had been on the bridge that afternoon. But we know he was keeping an eye on the news, because he contacted police on the fourth day, the day after they released the bridge guy photo. He also admitted he had thought about it a lot since 2017; leakage.
13. He opted not to have police come to his house in Feb 2017, which could be seen as not wanting to alert his neighbors at a time when police were asking if people recognised bridge guy.
14. He changed his height and weight on his fishing licence 2 months after the murders.
15. His wife did not testify that she didn’t recognize it to be his photograph, his build, his stance, or his voice.
16. His wife offered no alternative narrative of what he’d told her about his day. Even during his period of torment, she didn’t reassure him and remind him of his first ever alibi to her. She revealed doubts about him in the interview room in October 2022.
17. He knew about a van appearing and being visible from the scene of his intended rape that the police weren’t even aware of. According to the FBI (apparently) they thought the van wasn’t there at that time. The timing according to the van driver who had no knowledge of Libby’s phone movements fits with RA being spooked and then Libby’s phone moving. That timing in his confession couldn’t have been in the discovery or on internet forums because police only investigated it after his confession, and RA indeed adduced no evidence of that either.
18. He had box cutters, a blade that matched the depth of the wounds, and the same ammo as that found at the crime scene.
19. He wasn’t seen leaving the bridge on the trails by anyone. Ergo he hid in the trees, as he said he did.
20. His detailed confession included what he planned, felt and saw, reasoning, logical sequence, as well as humility and self-awareness, as opposed to being I did this, this and this. The false confessions expert put on by the defense identified those as the distinguishing features of a real memory.

The quoted info in your post originates with an organisation (Innocence Project) who will know exactly how many cases involving false confessions have been overturned with DNA evidence. Yet they don’t divulge the number of cases, while making reference to a percentage of them. It could be 25% of 12 cases, or 100 cases. The numbers matter, so why hide the exact figure and give a meaningless percentage?

Then there is willy-nilly language of “many” of an already meaningless percentage of cases where false confessions involved crime-details not made public. Again, they will have the hard numbers, so why hide how “many”? They chose not to state the number, so one should question if the number of cases would not really be that impactfull.

Drilling down deeper, are their figures (that they chose not to make public) based on really old convictions dating back say fifty years, or more recent? Do they reflect times when police were able to get away with more dubious practices and recording of interviews was not commonplace? Did the police divulge the information to the confessor? Was the confessor a career criminal already serving time for the same type of offense? How nuanced was the information gathered? - “I think I shot him”, or more comparable to “I was disturbed by a van and so I immediately moved my victims”? - corroborated by phone movement and later by police investigating the time the van arrived

It looks very much like hyperbole to me.

I don’t doubt that they have done some invaluable work, but this new industry of promoting false-narratives that every other high-profile case is a far-reaching conspiracy against the defendant, is not only nonsensical when one stands back and sees it for the trend it has become, spilling over from social media onto the streets outside courts so that juries have to be shielded from it, it’s ignorant of the harm it brings to the victims’ families, and is hugely damaging to society, devaluing law enforcement and disrespecting the jury system.

This jury spent time away from their own families and considered and rejected the defendant’s case over many days that his 60+ confessions were false and a product of mental illness and maltreatment, from top to bottom and sideways, with hours of video evidence, and there is no indication that they did not understand the meaning of a reasonable doubt.

JMO

What an incredible sumary!

Thank you @Tortoise !!!!

 

[mrjitty]

One could also add, although he said he was on his phone checking stock while on the bridge, it was a lie. His phone was not in the geofence. His phone was not there. ( unless you did add this and I just completely missed it).

Something that is driving my a little crazy in my overly anorak way, is why neither side wanted to touch the hot stove on this issue.

I've since learned that Agent Horan did testify at the 3 day hearing for the prosecution, and it seems to have been such a non-event that the media skipped over it.

Then at trial the state did not call this witness, but instead just backgrounded it via the law enforcement officers. In other words they mention the existence of tower dumps and working from them, but it does not look like they exhibited this stuff?

Then on the D side, they seem to have relied on the idea that "no digital evidence links the accused to the crime scene" - but also have made no efforts to call Horan on that issue, nor produce their own expert witness to talk about that stuff.

I am speculating the reason they did that is because their own expert would simply highlight that RAs phone was not present which is bad for them.

MOO

 

[mrjitty]

hear hear.

I was watching one of those channels and I thought poor guy's being really stitched up.

Until I started doing my own research halfway through the trial.

It's been a learning curve shall we say.

One who shall remain nameless, actually said after the verdicts, in all seriousness, 'I'm going to list the key factors that were probably the biggest influences on the jury...one of the biggest influences on the jury was (...drum roll...) what they did not hear'.

Straight up. Straight face and all.

Yes it's not credible is it.

It's easy to forget that way back before the Judge threw the D off the case, much of the coverage was 100% normal, and the attorneys would discuss the law, and apply relevant authorities to the facts, then try to assess what the Judge might rule.

Then all that went out the window in the winter of '23

MOO

 

[Deleted member 296739]

Something that is driving my a little crazy in my overly anorak way, is why neither side wanted to touch the hot stove on this issue.

I've since learned that Agent Horan did testify at the 3 day hearing for the prosecution, and it seems to have been such a non-event that the media skipped over it.

Then at trial the state did not call this witness, but instead just backgrounded it via the law enforcement officers. In other words they mention the existence of tower dumps and working from them, but it does not look like they exhibited this stuff?

Then on the D side, they seem to have relied on the idea that "no digital evidence links the accused to the crime scene" - but also have made no efforts to call Horan on that issue, nor produce their own expert witness to talk about that stuff.

I am speculating the reason they did that is because their own expert would simply highlight that RAs phone was not present which is bad for them.

MOO

That is a niggling question- I would have assumed (wrongly!)—
—geofence data would have been directly introduced
— some sort of alibi would have been brought up to explain RA’s version of the timeline for the day
— the D would have circled back to what I think I remember from opening statements, that they were going to show he was off the trails at the time of the murders…

Just my thoughts, moo

 

[FrostedGlass]

That was a great segment with Lawyer Lee. It puts Richard Allen's interrogation into perspective.

According to this, Richard Allen decided to go to the police station because his wife suggested it. They watch Dateline together. Police were asking for anyone who had been out on the Monon High Bridge trail that day to come forward. This is certainly different than the theory that Richard Allen saw his picture on the trail cam on February 15th and decided he needed to come forward.

He went to the police station too. He did not decide to forget about it or tell his wife he would get to it later. He did not go to the bar or drive into the police station parking lot and then leave. He went to the police station and went inside to talk face to face with police because his wife suggested it. I thought he would have called the tipline instead, especially since he must think phone calls are not recorded.

This case certainly stands out for how much it appears the killer helped the police solve it.

Is the story told by Lawyer Lee in the video wrong about how Richard Allen ended up talking with the conservation officer? I always thought he just called the tipline, and then a meeting was set up later, but Richard Allen ended up meeting the conservation officer at the grocery store. Did Richard Allen actually go to the police station to talk about the case?

From your post:
"This case certainly stands out for how much it appears the killer helped the police solve it."

Plus the fact that he told everyone he came into contact with while in Prison that he did it ... over 60 times ...
acting crazy, just begging to be kept in solitary confinement, on suicide watch for the next 180 (?) years.

Have we ever heard of such a thing? MOO

 

[somequestions]

From your post:
"This case certainly stands out for how much it appears the killer helped the police solve it."

Plus the fact that he told everyone he came into contact with while in Prison that he did it ... over 60 times ...
acting crazy, just begging to be kept in solitary confinement, on suicide watch for the next 180 (?) years.

Have we ever heard of such a thing? MOO

I have not heard of anything like it.

My interpretation of the story told by Lawyer Lee is that Richard Allen was on his way to the police station when he met the conservation officer in a parking lot of the grocery store. If that is wrong, please correct me. It sounds like the conservation officer did try to record the interview, but lost the recording later?

But the point is, was he actually going to go to the police station?! That does not sound like someone who is afraid of being recognized. The fact that he got in touch with the tipline, I think on February 16th, is remarkable too. I would have thought he would have waited at least a little bit to see what type of evidence police had collected from the crime scene(fingerprints, eyewitnesses especially van person, or DNA).

Unfortunately though criminals do dumb things. That cannot be used as a reason for innocence, but it is definitely something to think about.

 

[FrostedGlass]

I have not heard of anything like it.

My interpretation of the story told by Lawyer Lee is that Richard Allen was on his way to the police station when he met the conservation officer in a parking lot of the grocery store. If that is wrong, please correct me. It sounds like the conservation officer did try to record the interview, but lost the recording later?

But the point is, was he actually going to go to the police station?! That does not sound like someone who is afraid of being recognized. The fact that he got in touch with the tipline, I think on February 16th, is remarkable too. I would have thought he would have waited at least a little bit to see what type of evidence police had collected from the crime scene(fingerprints, eyewitnesses especially van person, or DNA).

Unfortunately though criminals do dumb things. That cannot be used as a reason for innocence, but it is definitely something to think about.

I haven't listened to LL's version of that story; I'll take your word for it. I don't think he did it so it wouldn't surprise me if the above is true.

DD did say he recorded interviews and he didn't know why he couldn't find that one. That was in the FM. MOO

 

[Deleted member 296739]

I haven't listened to LL's version of that story; I'll take your word for it. I don't think he did it so it wouldn't surprise me if the above is true.

DD did say he recorded interviews and he didn't know why he couldn't find that one. That was in the FM. MOO

Perhaps it was included in the lot of early videos and interviews which were lost for unknown reasons… moo

 

[Justice101]

I have not heard of anything like it.

My interpretation of the story told by Lawyer Lee is that Richard Allen was on his way to the police station when he met the conservation officer in a parking lot of the grocery store. If that is wrong, please correct me. It sounds like the conservation officer did try to record the interview, but lost the recording later?

But the point is, was he actually going to go to the police station?! That does not sound like someone who is afraid of being recognized. The fact that he got in touch with the tipline, I think on February 16th, is remarkable too. I would have thought he would have waited at least a little bit to see what type of evidence police had collected from the crime scene(fingerprints, eyewitnesses especially van person, or DNA).

Unfortunately though criminals do dumb things. That cannot be used as a reason for innocence, but it is definitely something to think about.

I agree with the other poster's suggestion that maybe RA called LE tip line in the presence of his wife since this was after the still frame from the video was released. RA probably tried to get ahead of that and his wife might have said it was you and he said, yeh that looks like me. Let me call them even though I didn't see the girls or the perpetrator (that looked like me).

His wife would have been placated because nobody from LE came to him for 5 years...so in her mind, he could always say he was cleared.

 

[Tortoise]

I have not heard of anything like it.

My interpretation of the story told by Lawyer Lee is that Richard Allen was on his way to the police station when he met the conservation officer in a parking lot of the grocery store. If that is wrong, please correct me. It sounds like the conservation officer did try to record the interview, but lost the recording later?

But the point is, was he actually going to go to the police station?! That does not sound like someone who is afraid of being recognized. The fact that he got in touch with the tipline, I think on February 16th, is remarkable too. I would have thought he would have waited at least a little bit to see what type of evidence police had collected from the crime scene(fingerprints, eyewitnesses especially van person, or DNA).

Unfortunately though criminals do dumb things. That cannot be used as a reason for innocence, but it is definitely something to think about.

No that is not what happened.

RA left a tip on 16th Feb.

In 2022 they ask him why he made contact in 2017. He said his wife said they want to speak to everybody and so he claims he went to the sheriff's office to leave his details. That is only RA's word that he went in person, it is not evidence from LE.

DD then called him on 18th Feb and said he could come to RA's house or RA could come into the station, for interview.

RA said to DD meet me in the grocery store parking lot.