Delphi defense team asks to push back May hearings

UPDATE: Special Judge Fran Gull ruled that she will still hold several days of pretrial evidence hearings beginning on May 21 that will address most of the recent motions made in this case.

Gull said she would grant the defense’s request in part, however, but continuing the defense team’s Motion to Suppress. This is the motion that asks for Richard Allen’s “confessions” to be omitted from the trial. Discussions on that motion will now be continued to a future, not yet scheduled, hearing.

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CARROLL COUNTY, Ind. — The Delphi murders defense team is asking the court to push back a pretrial evidence hearing scheduled for May 21.

Richard Allen, the man accused of killing teen girls Abby Williams and Libby German in February 2017 near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi, was originally set to go to trial on May 13, before his attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi claimed they have not had enough time to prepare their case and rescinded their request for a speedy trial.

Now, the high-profile trial that has drawn national attention is scheduled to begin on Oct. 14 and last through Nov. 15.

Several days of pretrial hearings are currently scheduled to start on May 21 to address several recent motions filed by the defense and the state about evidence and what may, or may not, be able to be brought up in the trial.

The defense team is pushing for alleged confessions made by Allen during captivity to be suppressed and therefore unable to be presented as evidence during the trial. The attorneys claimed Allen’s confessions were made during a “state of psychosis” brought about by his poor conditions and deteriorating mental state.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland, meanwhile, is pushing to bar the defense from presenting their alternative murder theory in court which includes linking the young girls’ deaths to “cult or ritualistic” killings steeped in “Odinism.”

The prosecutor has pushed back against presenting this theory in court by claiming that not only is the theory “not supported by admissible evidence,” but that the defense couldn’t introduce a third party without showing “some connection between the 3rd party and the crime.”

The defense team has already argued that their alternative theory is integral to their defense and was part of the reason they requested the trial to be delayed until October as they worried the prosecutor would not leave them enough time in the trial to fully present their theory.

In the filing requesting next week’s hearings to be pushed back, Baldwin and Rozzi told the court the pair needed more time to conclude their deposition including deposing a psychologist assigned to Allen during his stay at Westville Correctional Facility. The defense said they had only just begun speaking to the psychologist.

The judge has not yet ruled on whether or not to grant the defense team’s request and delay the pretrial hearing. The hearing could prove pivotal to the Delphi murders trial as any decision to bar certain evidence or topics from being presented during the trial could greatly impact the defense’s and prosecutor’s respective cases.

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