Jury selection begins for Delphi murder trial

DELPHI, IND. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - More than seven years since the mysterious murders of two teenage girls in Indiana, the man charged with their deaths will go on trial today.

Jury selection begins for Richard Allen's double murder trial in the 2017 deaths of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, who disappeared while hiking in Delphi, Indiana.

Their bodies were found near Monon High Bridge the following day.

Allen, a pharmacy technician who had lived and worked in Delphi, was arrested in October 2022, nearly six years after the girls known as Abby and Libby were killed.

In July 2017, investigators released a sketch of the suspect, and another in April 2019. They also released a brief video showing the suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge called the Monon High Bridge.

After years of failing to find a suspect, investigators said they went back and reviewed “prior tips.”

Allen had been interviewed in 2017. He told the officer that he had been walking on the trail the day the girls went missing and that he saw three “females” at another bridge — the Freedom Bridge — but did not speak to them. He said he did not notice anyone else because he was distracted by a stock ticker on his phone, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police interviewed Allen again on Oct. 13, 2022, when he reasserted he had seen three “juvenile girls” during his walk in 2017. Investigators subsequently searched Allen's home and seized a .40-caliber pistol. Testing determined an unspent bullet found between the teen’s bodies “had been cycled through” Allen's gun.

According to the affidavit, Allen said he had never been to the place where the bullet was found, that he did not know the owner of the property, and “had no explanation as to why a round cycled through his firearm would be at that location.”

The so-called "Delphi murder case" has seen numerous motions and delays.

Allen's attorneys had hoped to present evidence that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group known as the Odinists, but Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull ruled against that, saying the defense “failed to produce admissible evidence" of such a connection.

She also blocked Allen's attorneys from arguing the killings may have been committed by others, including the late owner of the property where the teens' bodies were found.

Jury selection is at Allen County Courthouse, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The trial will then move to where the crime happened, Carroll County.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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