Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 7 Shocking Details of Delphi Murders Revealed at Trial So Far

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. New details about the murders of teenagers Libby German and Abby Williams are coming out in the trial of Richard Allen. I'll take a closer look at what we're learning from opening statements and the first witnesses to take the stand from someone who was in the courtroom in Delphi, Indiana. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Jurors in Richard Allen's

Starting point is 00:00:31 double murder trial in Delphi, Indiana have heard opening statements and now they're hearing testimony from witnesses for the prosecution. The eight women and four men on the jury were selected from Allen County, That's in Fort Wayne. And they're now in Carroll County, where they are sequestered. Bob Mata from the Defense Diaries podcast will be with us in just a little bit. He was in court for opening statements, and he'll tell us what he saw. Unfortunately, cameras are not being allowed in the courtroom. They could have been allowed, but Judge Francis Gall decided against it after allowing cameras

Starting point is 00:01:04 in court for just one hearing. There's a lot of interest in this case, with people lining up early in the morning to get one of the coveted seats inside the courtroom. The jurors will decide whether the state of Indiana is presenting enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Richard Allen murdered Libby German and her best friend Abby Williams on February 13th, 2017. The murders of Abby and Libby went unsolved for years, more than five to be exact. Libby and Abby went to the Monon High Trail that Monday. They were off school. Other people were on the bridge that day as well.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Prosecutor Nick McClellan says there is one person who murdered Abby and Libby, and there's video of him. McClellan says he's Bridge Guy, and he says Bridge Guy is Richard Allen. Libby German's phone recorded Bridge Guy. You've seen the still photos of him, wearing jeans and a blue jacket and a hat, and you've heard the video. It was one of the earliest clues in the case. Take a listen to the video released years ago by the FBI. Now you hear the man in the video say, guys down the hill.

Starting point is 00:02:21 That was played on a loop several times for you. McClellan told the jurors that Allen forced Libby and Abby off the bridge at gunpoint with the goal of sexually assaulting them. Libby was just 14 and Abby 13. Allen's planned sexual assault of the girls was interrupted, according to McClellan. So he slit Libby's throat. Abby's throat was also cut. Libby was found naked and covered in blood, according to McCleland, and Abby was found wearing Libby's clothes. Abby's clothes, including her tie-dyed t-shirt, were found in a creek. McCleland let the jurors know that the crime scene was gruesome and

Starting point is 00:02:57 bloody. McCleland told the jurors that the evidence includes video of Bridge Guy, you just saw that, an unspent bullet found at the crime scene that investigators said had been cycled through a gun owned by Allen, and Allen's multiple confessions that he says include details about Libby and Abby's murders that only the killer would know. Those confessions came when Allen was behind bars after he had been charged, and they were statements that he made to his mother and wife. Allen reportedly shook his head no when the prosecutor said these things during his opening statement. Allen's attorneys say the confessions were not voluntary and that they were the product of him being incarcerated in solitary confinement in terrible conditions. Attorney Andrew Baldwin

Starting point is 00:03:41 gave a longer opening statement than the prosecution, and he talked about a botched police investigation into the murders of Libby and Abby. He also questioned the science the prosecution is using to link the unspent bullet found at the crime scene to Richard Allen's gun. Baldwin questioned the state's timeline, saying video evidence from the area doesn't match the state's theory that Richard Allen is the killer. Richard Allen, by his own admission, was on the bridge that day, but he maintains he did not see the girls. The defense also suggested that Abby and Libby were abducted and taken away, but then brought back to the area later and murdered. And as I told you previously, Baldwin told the jury that a hair that does not belong to Richard Allen was found on Abby's finger wrapped around it. Baldwin said the hair was not Libby's and it came from a female. Becky Patty, Libby's grandmother, was the first witness to testify.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Patty described her granddaughter as active, very smart, involved in sports, and she said she had a ton of friends. Patty said Libby and Abby were inseparable. The girls played volleyball and were in the band. That Monday, they wanted to go to the Monon High Trail. The prosecutor said crossing the bridge was considered a rite of passage for teens in the area. WTHR reported that Patty said tearfully she came to the office saying goodbye. Patty said she told Libby to grab a jacket and Libby responded, grandma, I'll be okay. Patty also said that she was asked to provide hairs for DNA analysis two days before she testified. And that could be an effort by

Starting point is 00:05:18 the prosecution to determine whether Patty's hair was the hair in Abby's hand. The girls did not show up at the spot where they were supposed to be picked up at 3.30 that afternoon. Libby's dad testified that he called her cell phone, but she didn't answer. The girls were found the next day. The man who found them testified on Saturday. Abby Williams's mother also testified about losing her only child. She talked about Abby being active in their church and hanging out with a small group of friends. Bob Siegel from WTHR in Indianapolis has tweeted a view of the courtroom since cameras are not allowed inside. One thing that's interesting is that

Starting point is 00:05:55 jurors are allowed to ask questions. They write them down and then the judge asks the questions of the witnesses. Now, two things that Judge Gall has ruled the jury will not see. Two composite sketches released in 2017 and 2019. The defense argued they are relevant because they don't resemble Allen. The state disagreed and said they weren't used to ID Richard Allen and would confuse the jury. Richard Allen faces two counts of murder in the deaths of Libby German and Abby Williams. I wondered what I might find if I looked him up on truthfinder.com. Richard Allen faces two counts of murder in the deaths of Libby German and Abby Williams. I wondered what I might find if I looked him up on truthfinder.com.

Starting point is 00:06:31 That's the largest public record search service. Truthfinder is great because it will show you someone's current and past addresses, social media accounts, relatives, and criminal and traffic records. I put in Richard Allen's name and I found that he had a concealed weapons permit in Indiana. That's not a big surprise because we know in this case that he owned a handgun. Truthfinder also showed Allen's old addresses. You know what I also love about Truthfinder? It will show you the sex offenders who live in your neighborhood, which is really great for me because I have a son.

Starting point is 00:07:03 So right now I have a great deal for you. You can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash LC crime fix and start accessing information about almost anyone. I want to bring in Bob Mata of the defense diaries podcast. He has been in the courtroom. So Bob opening statements, there were some new revelations from the prosecution, including the fact that Abby and Libby, their throats were slit. That appears to be the cause of death. Libby was naked, but Abby was wearing Libby's clothes. This is a very strange set of facts that we have here. Yeah, I didn't. I think we had heard at some point in the hearings that that the girls had been uh killed with somebody using a sharp instrument so and i think that we had heard that

Starting point is 00:07:56 the throats were so to be honest with you nick mcleanland's opening was about 15 to 17 minutes long and there was no new information that i thought like i've i've been following the case pretty intently for a long time this was kind of that thing where i'm waiting to hear okay well what else do they have because we've always known about the him being at the bridge the bullet and now this evidence which they seem to be completely relying on which is the confessions which happened while he's in custody in a prison for four months in solitary post-arrest um that becomes the focal point of their their case it doesn't sound like they have anything else everybody was like what

Starting point is 00:08:40 else do you have like so it was a short closing for a case or a opening rather for a case of this, this magnitude. So I didn't really find that to be any revelations for me personally. As far as Baldwin goes, he went on for probably about an hour. It was fact-filled in terms of what the defense's theory is. He meandered a bit, but you tend to do that in openings. He had some revelations in his opening. So opening statements are not evidence, okay? Opening statements are a roadmap for the jury to hear what they can expect to hear from both the state and the defense during the

Starting point is 00:09:26 course of the trial so as far as baldwin goes he he said some things that i had not heard one being that i found was aside from the hair wrapped around libby's finger which we had heard news of um a little bit but we didn't get the details of that. What also came out is that in seven years, they have not figured out whose hair that was. They know that it's not Richard Allen's. They know that it's not Libby's and they know that it's not Abby's hair either. So where we're at now is we know that it's a female hair and that's it.

Starting point is 00:10:03 This was wrapped around her finger and would seem to be indicative of maybe her pulling somebody's hair so i don't think that there can ever be an assumption that maybe there wasn't and in this case where law enforcement themselves have always said that they thought that there were potentially multiple people involved with this. So the other, the other big thing was witnessing Betsy Blair. Now, if you've been following the case at all, there were two composites that were released by law enforcement one in July of 2017, and then one in 2019, July of 2017, was a older, probably 40 year old,

Starting point is 00:10:42 heavier set gentlemen with like kind of a scruffy goatee looking beard, a head covering, uh, kind of like jowls on the side. And then the 2019 is a much younger looking individual, maybe 20 mid twenties, fluffy hair, uh, no kind of facial hair whatsoever. Very fresh faced look to be to me 20 years younger she is the witness that that stated that that was the person that she saw on the bridge okay the second composite what's most what was the biggest bombshell to me is that Baldwin has claimed that Betsy Blair left the trails at 2 15 in order to go to the bathroom. Then she goes out there three to four times a week to exercise. That's where she does her walking.

Starting point is 00:11:29 And then she had to go to the bathroom. There's a library that's within walking distance. She left to go use the restroom at the library. She passes the CPS, the old CPS parking lot, wherein the state has said that Richard Allen had parked his vehicle. And Richard Allen said, that's what I parked at 2 15 PM. The Ford focus was not there was gone. And she said that there was a Mercury look of the car that looked like a car

Starting point is 00:11:56 that her father used to own when she was a kid, like an old 1970, somewhere in that frame, Mercury comment, which is nothing like a Ford Focus. Point being is that that would see if that holds true at trial, if she gets on the stand and testifies that when she went out at 2.15 and passed the old CPS parking lot, that Rick Allen's car was not there, that means Rick Allen was gone by 2.15, which completely blows apart the state's timeline. So she potentially is a huge witness. Huge. Bob, Nick McClellan said in his opening statement that their belief is that the motive for this crime was that the girls would have been sexually assaulted by Richard Allen, but that he was interrupted. So tell me a little bit about that, because members of the general public might not know

Starting point is 00:12:48 about this. Yeah. So that seems to be their theory, which would go to explaining why Libby was unclothed when she was discovered and why Abby was wearing some of Libby's clothing. So the kind of a trigger warning, cause the crime scene, you've got Libby, who is, who is unclothed. And then you've got Abby, who is clothed, fully clothed with some of, of Libby's clothing. And I think this is coming from one of Alan's confessions where he says from, from what we've heard that it sounds like he said, um, you know, that's what I'm guessing. That's the only, it's the only place

Starting point is 00:13:32 it can come from. It can't come from anywhere else. It's gotta be because Nick McLean said that Rick Allen testified to something that only the killer or, uh, confessed to only something the killer could know. And, and for, for the state to say that well that is actually a revelation that we had not heard that they do believe that there was sexual assault that was intended but didn't happen because he was interrupted either by a car which i don't see how a car would like i'm having a hard time understanding having walked down to that crime scene as recently as last Friday, where there would be a vehicle that would have been able to see him or obviously the other thing could have been in person, but they would have had to come down the hill. So we're going to have to,

Starting point is 00:14:17 it's, we're going to find out a lot more, obviously, when we get testimony and when we start hearing the confessions played in court, because at this point, them's just words. Yeah. I mean, I think we'll have to wait to hear how he says it. You can tell a lot by the way somebody says something, the content of what is said. Yes. And then possibly matching that up with the crime scene photos. Let's talk now about the bullet, because the bullet is one of the big things that the prosecution is hanging its hat on. And that is this cartridge that wasn't a fired round, but it was somehow cycled through the Sig Sauer gun, according to the prosecution that

Starting point is 00:14:59 Richard Allen owned, and that it was found in between the girls' two bodies. It has the extraction marks or what have you from the firearm. The defense is saying, look, they didn't test other guns. And it's my understanding they're asking, you know, oh, did law enforcement show up? And when they showed up, did they have guns? Of course they had guns. So they're saying, look, they didn't do their due diligence in examining other firearms. But the prosecution saying basically we didn't have to because it came from Richard Allen's gun. So that's going to be a big point of contention in this case.

Starting point is 00:15:37 Yes, it is. And so we did get some details. It was a 40 caliber Winchester round. Baldwin did make the point pretty, pretty adamantly during openings that look six hours are what cops carry 40 calibers the caliber gun that they carry it's very common and so yeah that is going to be the biggest battleground the two biggest battlegrounds are going to be the unspent casing and the confessions there is going to be a lot of testimony in terms of the defense putting on people from the prison whether it be other inmates Monica Walla who was Allen's psychiatrist or psychologist in prison in order to explain the conditions of his confinement exactly what was going on with him as we heard back in in July and August he was not in a good place mentally. He was he was disturbed. So but that doesn't necessarily mean that a person's lying or truthing either way.

Starting point is 00:16:31 You know, there is nothing that we can glean from the fact that he had a psychological break, that he's now confessing everything that's true. We don't know if he's being fed information because, again, in a case. And I know this from being a defense attorney, when the state feels like they may not have the most powerful case and they're always looking for more evidence, that's just common sense. And that's, that's good practice, right? You're always trying to build your case up. So I think that ultimately when they arrested Allen with kind of the, the, the bullet, which they know isn't powerful evidence in the sense that it's going to be very, very heavily challenged. And that does not mean that it won't resonate with the jury,

Starting point is 00:17:08 but I'm going to tell you based on the seven questions that we heard on day two, this jury sounds sharp. This jury is listening to this case. This jury's leaning in. They're taking notes. It seems to be a very detailed or oriented jury to me like i'm not seeing anybody dozing i'm just seeing people that are really looking into it so when when that all comes you know that's the battleground whether or not well they can actually pull an extraction because the one thing that baldwin said about the extracted bullet which means it just ejected out of the top right full folk you know full unspent casing just popped out. Like probably when the gun was racked, it was like blink and then fell on the ground.

Starting point is 00:17:49 So what Baldwin had said during his opening is like, I like, it's not going to matter what the experts say. He's like, you have eyes, use your eyes and you compare if it looks the same as Richard Allen's use your own eyes. So we're going to see it. I mean, we're going to see that evidence. We're going to see what the comparisons are. So I'm obviously really interested to see that. Bob, take me into the courtroom a little bit.

Starting point is 00:18:15 You know, the jurors, we've seen some pictures on Twitter from some of the reporters covering the case. The jurors are in a box. The four alternates are in front. And kind of there's like a table with a black tablecloth. The jurors are in a box. The four alternates are in front. There's like a table with a black tablecloth. That's just the best they can do, I guess, according to the judge. They're making do with what they can do in the courtroom. But it's my understanding from reading the accounts that Richard Allen was praying in the courtroom before the opening statement started.

Starting point is 00:18:45 When they were talking about him confessing. He was shaking his head no. His wife shook her head no as well because the state is going to apparently play these phone calls in which he confessed, according to the prosecution. The defense is saying those are not voluntary confessions. They're false confessions. He was in solitary. He was mentally a mess. He was, you know, just saying whatever. So talk to me about what is going on in the courtroom, what you're seeing since we can't be in there. We can't have a camera in there. Yeah, it is a very small courtroom. It's quaint. There is the jury box that obviously sits 12 and as you said they have the four alternate seated uh right in front of that with a small table with black tablecloth

Starting point is 00:19:33 you then have defense counsel's table uh closest to the jury box and then you have the state's table their counsel table right next to them. They have a large 85 inch touchscreen that Nick McLean tried to use on his opening statement. I actually felt bad having been an attorney, knowing where you're at in your head, trying to get ready to get it. It wouldn't work. So he could write, it wouldn't work, you know, so that, like that's an inauspicious start for when you have like a really high pressure moment in your life. So I, I felt for him and he did the best he could i think it i think it probably rattled him would have rattled me for certain in that moment in time because you're probably putting pictures of the girls up

Starting point is 00:20:12 you know doing the things you're going to do when you're making an opening uh judges is seated they're very tight orders the the gallery is very small as well they've got us uh basically on on two sides you've got the bulk of the left-hand side behind the state's council table is the family of both Abby and Libby. And then you've got the press. There is some press in the front row. So they have the press set up in the front rows on both sides. Kathy Allen, Rick's mother are on the right hand side behind defense counsel table. The public is and there's only 23 seats for the public are all behind defense counsel table as well. Bob, talk to me a little bit about the first witnesses who testified. And that would

Starting point is 00:21:00 have been Libby's grandmother, Becky Patty, and some other family members, because they're really starting at the beginning of the case. The girls were off school. They left. One of the really sad things was she said she told the girls to be careful and Libby said grandma will be fine. And they weren't fine. Just horrible. So talk to me about watching these family members testify. Yeah. So Becky Patty was the first who is Libby's grandmother and who Libby lived with along with Derek German and her sister Kelsey and their stepbrother Cody, who is Mike Patty, who is Becky Patty's husband, second husband. That is his child, Cody. He's an adult. So they all lived in the house. becky came up just incredibly brave powerful woman i mean this has been going on for seven years in their lives this nightmare

Starting point is 00:21:50 and uh she just went up there and and did what she had to do she really was able to maintain her composure under just brutal circumstances um i mean she cracked at one point, which is obviously to be expected. And but for the most part, I mean, she really she really powered through very, very difficult testimony in terms of kind of got a lot of background about Libby. I mean, these were definitely the proof of life witnesses and also the beginning of the timeline witnesses. And after Becky Kelsey testified, kelsey again uh was very matter of fact it was frankly a little shorter than i thought i thought it in the cross was very short andy baldwin from the defense did the cross of the paddies obviously cognizant that you're not going hard at family members on the stand in a case like this. You have to really tread carefully.

Starting point is 00:22:46 Otherwise, you'll lose the jury. So Kelsey got up there, told her version of what had happened. That's where we learned that she had given Libby one of her sweatshirts from the back of the car that had never been worn. It was a Delphi swimming t-shirt or a sweatshirt from the school. She was on the swim team. She said that Libby put that on. She said that she had given Abby a small windbreaker, light windbreaker that you can see in the one picture of Abby on the bridge. You can see her wearing that windbreaker, talked about dropping the girls off and then kind of talked about her timeline afterwards, what she did with respect to the search. We then had Derek German, who was Libby's father, testify. He was the one who was supposed to pick the girls up.

Starting point is 00:23:32 At around 3.15, we learned that he was working, doing some work for his mother, who Becky Patty does house appraisals for real estate. And Mike, I'm sorry, Derek was helping her out and then driven out to Frankfurt, Indiana in sorry, Derek was helping her out. And then driven out to Frankfurt, Indiana, in order to take some photographs for her. You need to take about 18 photographs. So when he left the house, he did,

Starting point is 00:23:54 this was not a set arranged thing, knowing that he had to pick the girls up Libby called him after he'd already left for Frankfurt and said, dad, do you know, I need you to pick us up while you do it. He's like, okay, sure. But this is what I've got going on. I've got a 40 minute drive to Frankfurt, probably 30, 40 minutes, take the picks and then 40 minutes back. So like I'm guessing three 15, three 30. So that's how that got set up. Derek then talked about when he got there and he's trying to text his daughter and he's not getting an answer. The family testifying,

Starting point is 00:24:23 they really stood up really well in terms of trying to maintain their emotions. And certainly nobody's going to be sweating them if they're getting emotional on the stand during this kind of testimony, you know? So, and then it was, it ended with Anna Williams, who was Abby's mom. She, she testified as well. Oh, one interesting thing I want to point out, Derek German did confirm there had always been this story that the girls had eaten pancakes that morning. Derek German confirmed that he in fact cooked the girls banana pancakes. That will be significant when the medical examiner comes on to talk about the stomach contents, if in fact they examine the stomach contents, because now we know that they had food

Starting point is 00:25:05 in their stomachs so if that wasn't tested which i've heard both sides i don't get into speculation i'm just waiting for the army to come on and see what they say but we do know that they ate banana pancakes and that so there's something that could have been used as a telltale sign to try to come up with a proper time of death because that's one thing that i have not heard in this case when did the girls actually die because we have what the state's theory is which is between 2 30 and 3 30 but i haven't heard any science to prove that that just sounds like that's when they think that it happened because that's when the girls arrived and the time of libby's last snapchat that's to me not sufficient when you had an Emmy coming to the scene.

Starting point is 00:25:47 So we'll see. We'll see where we're at. So that was that was basically the first day. Well, Bob Mata, thank you so much for coming on and for taking us inside the courtroom. I appreciate it. Of course. Pleasure. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 7 Shocking Details of Delphi Murders Revealed at Trial So Far

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