Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Delphi Murders: Suspect Confesses 61 Times To Girls’ Murders, Wife Says “Stop Talking!”

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

On day five of Richard Allen's murder trial, jurors heard testimony from the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies of Abby Williams and Libby German, as well as from a witness who saw the 'Bridge Guy' on the day of the murders. Dr. Ronald Kohr, who previously reported that he believed two knives were used in the killings, testified that he now believes the 'serration' seen in some of Libby's wounds was likely caused by an element on the handle of the blade. Kohr suggested that a box cutter with an extra thumb grip could have been the sole murder weapon. This testimony surprised Allen's defense team and directly contradicted Andrew Baldwin's opening statement, aligning instead with the state's claim that Allen used a box cutter to slash the girls' necks. Sarah Carbaugh, a lifelong Delphi resident who was walking her dogs on the afternoon of February 13, 2017, also testified about her sighting of the 'Bridge Guy.' She said she saw a man walking west on Country Road 300, covered in blood and mud, as if he had fallen on the trail. Carbaugh later recognized him from the video clip released from Libby's phone, but waited three weeks to report the sighting due to anxiety. Allen's defense questioned Carbaugh about discrepancies in her description during cross-examination, noting that her recorded interview mentioned blood only once. Baldwin also pointed out unusual details in her description, including her remark about the man's "effeminate eyes." Carbaugh pushed back, reminding Baldwin that over an hour of her interview video had been accidentally destroyed. Jurors have yet to hear testimony on Allen's 61 confessions. Among the hundreds of pages of court documents released since the start of the trial, a signed confession letter from Allen, stating, "I hope I get the opportunity to tell the families I'm sorry."  Joining Nancy Grace today:  Philip Dubé  – Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law; Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst, Author – “Deal Breaker,”  featured in hit show: “Paris in Love” on Peacock;, Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive Bill Daly – Former FBI Investigator and Forensic Photography, Security Expert Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” Twitter/X: @JoScottForensic Barbara MacDonald – Court TV Documentary Producer, Co-Host/Producer of HLN’s “Down The Hill Podcast” and Documentary, X: @NewsyBarbara  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To the trial in Delphi, two beautiful little girls found dead, the ground beneath them saturated in blood. As a digital expert and a medical examiner take the stand, we also learn the suspect confesses over 61 times to the little girl's murders to the point his wife says on the phone, stop talking. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Now we know why the girl's clothing was soaked. There were about three different areas where the clothing was in the creek. All of the clothing that was collected from the creek

was inside out. The gray hoodie that you see Abby wearing right there was found submerged in the creek. Libby was completely nude and Abby was wearing Libby's jeans and hoodie along with a gray sports bra that we believe belonged to Abby. Forensic pathologist Dr. Roland Kaur performed autopsies on Libby and Abby. He did Abby's autopsy first and said she suffered one large gaping wound in the neck. It was a one inch deep, three inch long incision wound of her neck. Abby also had a faint mark under her mouth, which Dr. Kaur said could be from duct tape or cloth. But she didn't show any signs of restraint wounds. She also showed no sign of blunt force trauma.

Dr. Kaur also said that even though a rape kit showed no overt injury pattern, that it doesn't mean that sexual contact did not occur. Believe it or not, online, all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories are sprouting, but we learn in court a rape kit was performed and apparently no sex attack could be proven from what was found on the bodies, then why were the girls naked? Why were they forced to strip out in the middle of nowhere in that cold temperature? So much happening in the courtroom and we are live at the courthouse joining me right now, investigative reporter and Court TV documentary producer, Barbara McDonald. She is the co-host and producer of an incredible podcast, Down the

Heel podcast. Barbara, thank you for being with us. Now, what we are learning is the medical examiner performed one autopsy, of course, then the next. We are learning that there is no evidence on the bodies to suggest a sex assault. Of course, the girls were stripped naked. So I'm not sure where that's going. I don't need sperm or DNA to tell me that they were naked and murdered for a sexual purpose. But there was also a lot of digital information. I wanna start first with the autopsies. Listen. Dr. Roland Kaur performed Libby German's autopsy

after completing Abby Williams' autopsy. Dr. Kaur notes that Libby had anywhere from three to five incision wounds on the right side of her neck, with the longest being about three and a half inches. Libby also shows no sign of overt sexual trauma or defensive wounds. Dr. Kaur estimated inches. Libby also shows no sign of overt sexual trauma or defensive wounds. Dr. Kaur estimated Abby and Libby died about 41 hours before the autopsy. To Barbara McDonald,

tell me first the jury's reaction during the medical examiner's testimony. The jury is paying very, very close attention. They are able to take notes. They have notebooks. They also get copies of most of the exhibits that are shown in court and have a file folder at their chairs where they're able to keep track of all of that information. As documents are handed to them, I do notice they look them over. They make notes. They make notes during the testimony. There's one juror in particular who's sitting in chair number 12, and he has taken a lot of notes throughout this entire trial. I also see when he is not taking notes that he is studying the families of the victims, the family of the defendant, as well as the defendant and both sets of attorneys. He's paying very close

attention, Nancy. To Philip Dubé joining us, high profile lawyer and LA County public defender. What does that mean? It means he spends his life in the courtroom, just like a prosecutor, but on the other side. Dubé, you know, in a lot of jurisdictions, judges will not let jurors take notes, believe it or not. I find that antiquated, but I understand what the judges are thinking. They don't want the jurors to rely on their notes. They want them to rely on their collective memory as to the testimony and evidence. And also, Dubé, one of the reasonings behind that, to which I disagree, by the way, but another reasoning is, say number 12 takes the best notes.

I guess when you were in law school, you were in a study group and whoever had the best notes became the authority, whether they were or they were not, because everybody passed around notes. Not me, of course, but I bet you did. Long story short, you don't want the jury to rely on number 12. What if he's wrong? They are to rely on their collective memories as to the testimony and evidence. But I find it very interesting that juror number 12, who is taking

copious notes, continues to look over at the victim's families. Jump in. Well, yeah, of course they are, because when you really think about it, the demeanor of everybody in court has an emotional impact on the jury. What I'd like to know is if Richard Allen's family is there, because to be fair to him, they should be looking at the emotional impact that the false allegations against him are having on the family. So it works both ways. If you only focus on the victim's family, then I'm not sure that that juror is necessarily being fair. And one other quick comment. I think the theory behind not allowing note-taking by the jurors is they don't feel you're going to be paying attention to the evidence if you've got your head down writing notes into a steno pad. I agree with you. It's antiquated. It's absurd. And frankly, why couldn't they all put their collective notes together when they're deliberating

and share their thoughts? And if there is a dispute, you can always go back into court for readback. And I can assure everyone that the jurors, even though nobody's told me this, are not allowed to take their notes or the physical exhibits of which they have copies with them at the end of the day to study when they are alone at night. They cannot discuss this or begin deliberations in any form until all the evidence is in. Back to Barbara McDonald, we are live at the courthouse bringing you the very latest. So I understand the medical examiner performed Abby's autopsy first, then Libby's. Now, Libby was found nude. Abby was found dressed in the wrong clothes, in some of Libby's clothes. How do you see the difference in the wounds?

And I want Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, death investigator, and Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, to listen carefully right now to Barbara McDonald. I've got a lot of questions, which only the two of you can answer. What did you hear, Barbara? We not only saw the images of these wounds, some very close up images of the wounds, but listen to that forensic pathologist, Dr. Roland Korr for the better part of the day testifying. And the wounds to Libby were much more brutal, rough. They were larger. They went more in an up and down pattern on her neck, whereas Libby or Abby rather just had the one cut. It was a bit cleaner. It was described as a gaping wound, but there were no other injuries around that. Libby did have some other injuries. She even had a cut on her right shoulder that

they described as minor, but it didn't look minor to me. It looked like if you were even sustained that cut, that it would have bled quite a bit and probably been painful. They didn't offer any sort of explanation about what happened to cause that wound or why the killer would have put a wound there. It definitely was not a life-threatening wound at all. One thing I heard in the testimony, Barbara, is that one of the girls' hands indicated, well, they were bloody. And from the position of the body, it appeared as if she had tried to stop the blood flow, try to stem the flow of blood from her neck. One of the things that Dr. Kaur testified to is that he believes that both girls would have lived for about five to ten minutes following the infliction of these injuries,

that at some point would have become unconscious from the blood loss before they actually died, but that yes, he said that the blood on Libby's hands was evidence to him that she had put her hands at her throat to try to keep that, keep the blood in, that that's a natural reaction, that you would want to cover that wound and apply pressure as much as you could. So what you're telling me, Barbara McDonald, is the girls did not have a quick death. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To you, Joseph Scott Morgan, from what we hear from the witness stand that Libby, the child that was left nude, suffered much worse. Of course, they're all horrible. All the wounds are horrible to both

girls, but Libby's wounds seem to be worse. And we know because there was swelling to one of the girls brains that they survived long enough to lie there on their backs, one naked, one had been naked, soaking wet from being forced through that creek, the ground saturating in blood beneath them. They laid there and they looked up at the sky. The last face they saw was whoever killed them. I want to hear your analysis because another thing that came up in court was that the medical examiner could not tell whether the perp was left-handed or right-handed. That's total BS because you can tell from a wound, for instance, which side is deeper and then it trails off. I mean, I don't know why they're

saying that, but first your analysis to the wounds on Libby and Abby, and this is critical, Joe Scott. I find it interesting that Libby has got what could be termed as multiple injuries to her neck. Let's keep in mind, Libby was an athlete. She had played softball and was very active. Abby is described as more passive. I think that Libby resisted, probably. Now, there's no evidence of defensive wounds per se. However, she does have this, and I didn't know this until

Barbara had mentioned it, this rather interesting injury that she has to the shoulder. I thought, you know, particularly I was wondering, is this a post-mortem injury? Because, you know, Barbara said something interesting per her view of this image. She said there wasn't blood, but it looked like something that had bled or should have bled. And they didn't offer much more of an explanation. But back to the wounds in the neck, you've got multiple, multiple cuts that are here, probably three to five.

And so they're kind of communicating in that area. It would give you an indication that either he was perhaps not feeling if he was hitting the correct depth as he is taking this blade and drawing it across her neck, or he was punishing her in some way. Let's keep in mind, Nancy, Libby's the one that's nude here. I've always held that I felt as though that she was probably targeted in some way. And this just goes to that point, I think, even further. Well, what do you have to say about it being argued in court that it cannot be determined if the pert was left or right handed?

Yeah, you make a good point, because if you if you could just keep me up just for a second, if you begin to think about and I think this is what you're getting at. If you have a right handed individual that's wielding a knife from the rear, from the rear, okay, that cut you would think is probably going to be higher. The blade is going to be drugged. And this is just the mechanics of how we move. As the blade is being drugged, it starts off high. And then, like you said, after it crosses the center

point of the neck, it'll generally trail off. And that gives you an indication that there's a lack of pressure at the end. Generally, the starting of this is going to have more pressure. If the individual is right-hand dependent, the depth here, particularly if it's on this side of the neck, is going to give you an indication of handedness. But many times, forensic pathologists are hesitant to make this assessment and really hang their hat on it because it's not necessarily quantitative science. It's kind of a qualitative opinion. Well, it makes sense to me, like two and two equals four. I understand that. Right, right. And when you slash, you have naturally, and everybody can try this at home for Pete's sake, when you slash something like you're breaking into a box, your momentum is at the beginning when you start that slash and then you pull back.

Think of opening up a FedEx or UPS. You slash and pull back. Your velocity is stronger at the beginning. Yeah, and this subject would have had, if it is him, you know, he worked with a box cutter regularly. We've heard this term box cutter over and over again. I think that's something interesting to explore here. But, Nancy, you're doing, I got to tell you, I don't necessarily, you made a very quick slashing movement. I don't know that it was quick.

It may have been drawn out. Joining me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst joining us from Beverly Hills. Dr. Bethany, a lot of questions. And if you could be concise on this, one girl, obviously, as Joe Scott Morgan said, the main target, both of them are brutally murdered. Both of them stripped. What does it say to you? And why the half-hearted effort of redressing one girl and not the other? Well, I think there, this was a sexually motivated crime. There was a lot of practicing in anticipation of the crime, thinking about how he would kill the girls. So perhaps two different MOs on each girl, redressing them because he wanted to come

back and have sex with them. This is what the M.O. was, that the infliction of cruelty caused the sexual excitement. Coming back was to take advantage of the girls, but he wasn't able to do that. But he had to dress them to preserve the bodies. I think that for each item that's there, there's a potential he was throwing these items in front of these children. I can imagine these poor little girls screaming and crying and just so distraught. You're watching these young girls being, you know, humiliated relative to exposure of their bodies to this creepy guy. To degrade, to humiliate, and to force them into sexual submission.

How menacing. You're going to push these girls to do whatever you want them to do. And then afterwards, afterwards, you're going to redress bodies. Joining us live at the courthouse, Barbara McDonald, Court TV documentary producer,

co-host of Down the Hill podcast. Barbara, I want to focus very quickly on what I consider to be very, very powerful evidence, and that is the digital pings and geographic pinpoints of the girls' phones. And also what we're hearing, and this is very significant, is that these phones can be tracked altitudinally. In other words, as the girls go down the hill, you can see an altitudinal change in the pinging information. And I'm very curious. I want everyone to hear what we're hearing in the courtroom. And I'm wondering about the defendant, Alan's phone, because remember in Alex Murdoch's trial, which is a great example of this, that's why I keep using it. His phone travels with his dead wife's phone briefly before her phone is thrown out of the window. And the traveling together is very, very probative. So first of all, if you could explain the crux of the digital information regarding

the girls' phones and what, if anything, we know about the suspect's phone. So we know from the digital evidence, the last movement of Libby's phone was about 2.32 p.m. on the 13th. And they were approached on the bridge. That video that she made happened at 2.13 p.m. So it certainly sounds like what they're implying with this evidence is that by the time 2.32 hits, that phone is at the crime scene. It no longer moves. We also heard that Richard Allen had 23 devices that were collected in that search of his home. None of them were the phone that he was carrying back in 2017. We know that because when he gave that first statement to law enforcement days after the murders, they wrote down the unique ID of the phone that he was carrying at the time.

That device was not found. They said in the devices that were recovered, though, there were searches about the case, but they don't know who made those searches, Nancy. Question. So you're telling me the device that Alan carried in 2017 disappeared? It was not found. Did he give any explanation about where his cell phone is?

Nope. Okay. So his cell phone physically is gone, but can it still be pinged? They have not said whether they were able to retrieve any data through his phone provider or anything like that. I don't know if other witnesses are going to come in that will talk about that part of the investigation. The gentleman who was on the stand yesterday, this First Sergeant Christopher Cecil, did say that over the course of these years since this murder happened, every time there's new technology or a software update in any of the programs they

use, they go back and relook at this information, see if they can uncover more data. Isn't it true that an expert stated there is no indication that Libby's phone was ever turned off? Correct. So what does that mean to you, Barbara McDonald? It's interesting that the phone was found at the crime scene. The defense is certainly making the argument that the girls and that phone left the scene sometime on the 13th and were brought back the following day. What this Apple health data shows is that that phone did not move once it got to that crime scene about 2.32 p.m., it did not move after that. I suppose it's entirely possible that the girls left the scene, if that is something the defense can prove, but the phone seems to have stayed there. But he could not, there were a lot of questions that even the jurors asked him that he

did not have answers for. And he does not know when Libby's phone lost power. That is information that the jury will not ever have because they can't determine that. Well, hold on. What about, are you saying the Apple phone or the Apple watch never left the scene? There was only one device found at the scene and it was Libby's iPhone 6S. OK, and OK, so when we're hearing about the health app, it's not a watch. It's just the app on the phone. Yeah, it's when you open up your iPhone and it records your steps and your movements and all of that. They're using that information from Libby's iPhone. Let me follow up with Joe Scott Morgan.

Joe Scott, the earth around the girls was completely saturated with blood. And that tells me that is the location of the murders. I mean, I don't know how they're going to spin out the cell phone, going quiet and dead, and then suddenly connecting to a cell phone tower and all of the earlier messages come in. I mean, the messages were coming in from the relatives going, hey, text me now, where are you? And those are from hours and hours before. To me, as a layperson, as it relates to digital data, it means that that is when the phone made that connection to a cell tower. It happens all the time when suddenly you connect and you get a torrent of text. That's not that hard for me to understand.

But the blood, the blood saturating the earth tells me that is where the girls were killed. Yeah, it does. And there's, you know, these are, to say the very least, these are catastrophic injuries. And this is not something that would facilitate them moving anywhere else. They were killed in that spot. They came to rest there, Nancy. To Barbara McDonald, one of the jurors, well, they asked a lot of questions and they passed the questions, I guess, to the bailiff. And then the judge ultimately gets the questions and the judge asks those questions on behalf of the jury. One of the questions which I found very interesting is, was the earth under the leaves under one of the girls disturbed? Tell me about that juror question. Yeah. And I forget exactly

which witness that was that they were talking to. I believe it was the lead crime scene investigator of Brian Olahi. And he testified that when they removed the bodies, that there was no, nothing underneath that had been disturbed. The leaves were all in place. There were no areas of exposed dirt, whereas away from the bodies, there were areas where it looked like the leaves had been moved and the dirt was exposed. He didn't really offer an explanation about why those weren't disturbed, other than that the girls did not move once they were in those positions. Well, that makes perfect sense, Barbara McDonald. But what do you believe the juror is getting at?

The jurors, some of the questions have been very easy to understand from them. And some of them have been a little bit more perplexing. It's hard to tell exactly what the mindset of that juror is, but the jurors are paying very close attention. And when they ask questions, they are very, very specific. The other thing that's very difficult to tell is which juror is asking which question, because at the end of testimony, once both sides of attorneys are done, the jurors simply submit their questions on a piece of paper to the judge. The judge meets with the attorneys behind a monitor and plays static in the court so we can't hear their conversation. And then she comes out and reads it and she does not identify which juror is asking the question, whether it's one juror

or multiple jurors for those questions. Right. Because the lawyers have to agree for the question to be asked. What are some of the other questions that you've heard in the courtroom, Barbara? One thing that was really interesting yesterday, we heard that the Snapchat post posted by Libby at 207 showing Abby on the bridge. That image was not found on Libby's device. It was not in her Snapchat. That's the image. It was not found on her Snapchat account. It was not found in her phone camera roll.

They looked for it. They could not find the image anywhere. He had absolutely no explanation about that. The defense tried to ask him about a cache, an encrypted cache that Snapchat keeps track of, of some sort of files, and he wasn't too familiar with that. The jurors had a lot of questions, though, about Snapchat and whether somebody could have accessed her account from another device and somehow deleted that image. But he was not able to offer any kind of explanation for why that image was not on her phone. She had taken about four pictures and uploaded those to Snapchat in the 45 minutes before the murders. And all of those other images were there.

It's just that one image of Abby that's missing. And we have no idea why. So did the jury seem to be absorbing all of the cell phone data, the digital data. And did anyone make any show a facial expression when we learned that after 23 devices are taken from the defendant, seized pursuant to search warrant, one's missing. And it happens to be the cell phone he would have been carrying that day. Nobody thought that was odd? You know, they all have poker faces. I've been trying to read faces and see how they're responding to various witnesses and whether or not they find them believable. bit of a sense of the jurors perhaps shaking their head a bit at a witness was the witness who testified that she saw the man walking on the road muddy and bloody. She sort of fell apart on

cross-examination, admitting that she never mentioned blood until her third interview with law enforcement. She couldn't explain why. She said she did mention it earlier and she doesn't know why it's not in the reports. She seemed to have some credibility issues with the defense attorney. She got very argumentative. Wait a minute, Barbara, wasn't a lot of the audio interrogations and questioning lost because of a snafu of LE? Yes. In the first days of the the investigation they did lose many of the um interviews that they did with potential suspects now we've never heard officially whether that includes any of these interviews with witnesses this particular witness didn't come forward the first time until more than three weeks after the murders that seems to be after that window

when that known problem happened with some of those files being lost. But she said that one of the officers told her that about an hour to an hour and a half of one of her interviews is missing. And she said when she talked about the blood. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It was something I've never seen before.

The viciousness and the brutality. This is going to be overkill. There's going to be mutilation to the point of a partial decapitation. Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin began his cross-examination of Sarah Carbaugh by asking questions about discrepancies in her descriptions of mud and blood. Carbaugh responded that the details were as simple as it is and that outside of this testimony, I want nothing to do with this. Baldwin continued to press asking about Bridgeguy's hair texture and eyes. Carbaugh responded to the attorney saying, you're romanticizing this. Who is Sarah Carbaugh? She fought back against the defense attorney who seemingly is making inroads with the eyewitnesses that spot the quote bridge guy.

Now, it's my understanding that they're not saying Richard Allen is the bridge guy. But we do know that Richard Allen himself places himself at the trestle bridge there at Monon Park at the time the girls were killed, around the time the girls were killed, wearing the same outfit as the bridge guy. Okay. So in order to believe he's not the bridge guy, you have to believe that another guy was there at the very same time wearing the very same outfit. Okay, so you've got Sarah Carbaugh fighting back with the

defense, but there are other witnesses that state they saw the bridge guy. Listen. After jurors are shown the bridge guy video from Libby German's phone, witnesses take the stand who are out walking the trails and crossing the high bridge the day the girls vanished. Rayleigh Voorhees was 16 and a student at Delphi High School when she was out walking near Freedom Bridge the day Abby and Libby vanished.

She describes seeing an unsettling man near the bridge who glared at her. She didn't recognize the man and said he wore a mask up to his nose. When shown a blown up photograph of Bridge Guy,

Voorhees said, that was the man I saw on the trail. Voorhees described Bridge Guy as wearing black jeans, a black hoodie, black boots, and a black mask. Claimed the man had a bigger build and estimated him to be 20 to 30 years old. Voorhees admitted her memory may have been impacted by the photo of Bridge Guy released by police during the investigation into the murders. We're getting different versions about what Bridge Guy looked like, but we've got Bridge Guy on video. So what does it amount to? A hill of beans or confusing

the jury? Now think about it. The one witness says she thought Bridge Guy was wearing a mask. But if you look at him, he's pushing his face down into his clothing. All right. Is that where she got that from? At one point, did he pull his clothing, his shirt up over his mouth or nose? And listen to this. Betsy Blair said she had been out walking the trails the day that Libby and Abby disappeared. And after hearing about the girls, spoke to police about what she saw that day. Blair was asked to help them create a sketch of the man she spotted near the bridge. She said the man had brown, poofy hair and described him as looking younger. She didn't recall him having facial hair. Betsy Blair says

she was about 50 feet from bridge guy and says she thought due to his posture that he was looking for someone. Straight out to Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst and author of Deal Breaker. She's on Peacock now. Dr. Bethany, I guess the name Ted Bundy rings a bell. Do you remember how he lost an incredible amount of weight so he could escape through a vent? But he changed his appearance. We saw Scott Peterson change his appearance, growing a goatee, much as Richard Allen has done, dyeing his hair. We see Brian Koberger charged in the quadruple murder in Idaho of four University of Idaho students killed in their own beds. We see him changing his appearance. We see this guy, Richard Allen, changing his appearance,

losing a huge amount of weight and growing a goatee. Anything to separate himself from being the bridge guy. Hello. And of course, I expect eyewitnesses versions to differ in some ways. Absolutely, Nancy. But of course, he confesses many times in jail. So once he's incarcerated, he does not try to remove himself from the story. So what I think is happening is that he's changing his appearance so he won't be incarcerated, so he can go out and commit more crimes, right? This was his moment of glory in his life when he killed these two girls. He had been thinking about this for a long time, perhaps fetishized the box cutter, fetishized the gun, had a rich masturbatory life leading up to this. And now that it's over, he wants to be out and on the loose. He wants to practice

what he's learned through this crime. High profile lawyer, Philip Dubay, joining us. Phil, if you could take off your defense hat just one moment and just tell me. I've seen it many times in the cases I prosecuted. When you've got eyewitnesses, the defense knows they're going to take the stand. The defendant will try to change his or her appearance. I've seen it over and over and over to make it more difficult for the eyewitness. And when you look at Bridge Guy, who we now know that Bridge Guy is the killer. He's the one that said down the hill. The more he can differentiate himself from that appearance, the more difficult it will be for the witnesses.

And you see how bridge guy is trying to cover his face. All you can see is here to here. Yeah. And it's quite common. I mean, obviously, people want to conceal their identities, particularly when they're going to commit a crime such as double murder. Now, to be devil's advocate, there were an awful lot of people out on that remote bridge that day. The prosecution will have you believe that he's just out there skulking about looking for the right opportunity to kill two girls. Whoever did this was it was a very unplanned attack because there was no way to know that Abby and Libby would even be out there that day. So at best, this was a crime of opportunity.

Unless you've been following them on social media. Sure. But then that means you would have to take the day off from work and decide just to hang out on a bridge and just wait for the right moment. I think that is a bridge too far. No pun intended. Guys, what are we learning? Now we hear the defense is trying yet again to bring in the theory of Odinism, that the real killer worshipped Thor and Odin, the mythological Norse gods. Is that true, Dave Mack? Is that true?

The defense is trying again to bring in odinism as a defense? They are. And they're actually using testimony from the crime scene investigator about the sticks and branches saying that that was actually put there as a sign, even though they were just thrown on top. They're trying to use that as their reason for bringing the odinism argument back in. Lawyers for Richard Allen are once again asking the court to allow their Odinism theory in the Delphi murders trial. The defense claims the crime scene where the girls were found contains evidence of a ritualistic murder tied to Odinism. Odinism is a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group. The defense tried introducing the Odinism theory in

September 2023, but Judge Gull blocked them from using the theory, citing a lack of evidence. The defense claims testimony from crime scene investigator Brian Oley during the trial is reason enough to allow the theory. We are live at the courthouse as the double murder trial of two beautiful little girls is underway. When will the jury hear all of the multiple confessions given by Richard Allen? Straight out to Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter covering the trial. Dave Mack, who to whom did Allen give these alleged confessions? Probably easier to list who he didn't give them to, Nancy. We're talking 60, 61 different confessions to he talked to police. He talked to inmates. He talked to his wife. He talked to

just about anybody that would listen. He told them that he had something to do with it. And apparently in some of these confessions, Nancy, he said things that only the actual killer would know. And that's what we're learning so far in dribbles and bits. What will we learn when we finally hear those? Because, I mean, think about it. Be all daily. Really? Inmates and their lawyers don't know that their conversations are being recorded. I assume that you've heard jailhouse conversations before, because about every 30 seconds you say you are being called

from a correctional institution. You can hear a recording on and on and on throughout all conversations from the jail or prison. Certainly that is quite evident. If it's not actually heard, it's known. So the fact that anyone would be making a confession and not knowing that somebody is either listening or has been recorded in some fashion is kind of a bit beyond the pale. So I don't know how they could kind of convey that in fact he wasn't aware of that

or there wasn't any supervision of these calls. It makes no sense. Yeah. Philip Dubé, criminal defense attorney in some places, even the walls and the C.I. Correctional Institute have recording devices in them. Yes, that's true. But this guy wouldn't quit. How can you discount 61 plus confessions, Dubé?

Easily. There is a branch of forensic psychology called imagination inflation. And it is a condition regarding false memory where somebody might be intimately familiar with some of the details, such as in this case, if he had been out on that trail, where due to delirium from being locked up, not on meds or maybe being on improper meds, was improperly or inaccurately recounting everything that occurred. It's sort of a Kafka-esque type phenomenon. It really is. It's called imagination inflation. And they recount things because they truly- You're making this up. You're having imagination. Because nobody said anything about his meds. I'm just telling you, you know why he's talking and he says this in his confessions, because he realized his family was turning against him after he keeps confessing to stripping and murdering two little girls. The family is starting to turn against him.

He believes the only way he will ever be reunited with his family is in heaven. Bad chance. But that said, to get to heaven, in his mind, he has to confess. Remember, we saw this in 2016 with John Carr, who confessed to killing. He confessed to killing Jean Benet Ramsey at a press conference in Thailand. What did they do? They get him on a plane. They extradite him and nothing matched the forensics. His DNA was nowhere.

Exactly. I'm so glad to use that example because Josiah Morgan, what intimate facts about this case do you believe the real killer would know and divulge over 61 confessions? Oh, my gosh. I killed these two girls and I covered them with branches and debris. Oh, my gosh. It was so cold out there. And I can't believe I did this. Oh, my gosh. I redressed a body. You know, oh, my gosh. I didn't I didn't understand what it was going to be like to cut a child's throat. That's the kind of thing. And I use my box cutter. That is the kind of thing I predict we're going to hear.

You're absolutely right. Details of the location, the moments, the responses of the girls, his remorse, any tidbit. Like, we haven't even heard the confessions yet. And we already have been told he mentioned a box cutter, uh, and that he disposed of the box cutter outside his place of business. What plethora of facts are we going to hear when we finally hear those confessions in court? And remember, you don't have to give a guy the Miranda rights when they're blabbing to their wife. A defendant gets Miranda rights, you have a right to remain silent, so forth and so on. If in state custody and speaking to law enforcement, the Constitution

doesn't protect you from blabbing to your wife over the prison phone. We wait as justice unfolds and we stay live at the courthouse. And now we remember an American hero, Deputy Sheriff Daniel Oliver, Sacramento County Sheriff's, shot and killed in the line of duty. Served 15 years with Sacramento County Sheriffs. Survived by grieving wife, Susan, daughters, Jenny and Melissa, American hero, Deputy Sheriff, Daniel Oliver. Thank you to our guests,

but especially to you for being with us as we cover the Delphi double murder trial. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.