Delphi murder suspect seen hobbling down stairs at Indiana court

Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen (pictured), accused of murdering two Indiana teenage girls in 2017, was seen hobbling down the stairs leaving court Friday. Allen had nothing to say after it was revealed that jurors at his trial will be selected from outside the county where the crime took place, a judge said Friday.

County Judge Fran Gull said in court that attorneys for Richard Allen, 50, of Delphi and the county prosecutor must decide within a week from which county that jury should come. Allen, who was at the hearing, was charged in October with two counts of murder in the slayings of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13.

However, Gull – assigned to the case after the original judge recused himself – said the trial will remain in Carroll County, where Delphi is located, because friends and family members of both parties are situated in the city, which is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis. Pictured: Abigail Williams.

Allen’s attorneys in November requested the trial location be changed, arguing it would be difficult to form an impartial jury in Carroll County because of intense public scrutiny and media attention surrounding the case. They argued that ‘the likelihood of a tainted jury pool,’ should it be drawn from the girls’ and Allen’s home county, ‘is excessive.’ They state that the best way to ensure a fair trial is to move it at least 150 miles from Carroll County. Pictured: Liberty German.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland agreed with this evaluation on Friday. A gag order in the case has also been in effect since December. On February 13, 2017, the girls, known as Libby and Abby, went hiking on a trail near the Monon High Bridge, just outside of the girls´ hometown of Delphi. The next day, their bodies were found in a rugged area near the trail.An unspent bullet found between the girls’ bodies ‘had been cycled through’ a pistol owned by Allen (pictured), according to redacted court documents released in November. Allen’s bail hearing will take place Feb. 17, where discussions for a new trial date – scheduled for March – will take place, Gull said.

DailyMail.com has learned that, shortly after his arrest, one of Allen’s neighbors recalled seeing police digging in his yard. DailyMail.com was then told they were digging up the family’s dead cat, whose hair proved a match for the samples found on one of the victims. Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland has openly stated that he believes ‘Allen is not the only actor involved in this.’ And while Allen has not been charged with kidnapping, prosecutors have alleged he attempted it. Sources close to the investigation have claimed that Allen was acting with at least two other men and was involved in a child ring.

In November, DailyMail.com revealed child sexual offender Kegan Kline (pictured), 28, of Peru, Indiana, who is currently awaiting trial on a slew of child video charges, was cooperating with State Police and prosecutors in a bid to reduce his own charges. Sources told DailyMail.com: ‘The girls met Kegan Kline online and he arranged to meet them that day but didn’t go. Instead, he set them up to be kidnapped for the [child video] ring.’ During one of several police interviews reviewed by DailyMail.com, Kline admitted to soliciting underage girls for explicit pictures by catfishing them, posing as teenage girl ‘Emily Anne’ or hunky actor model, ‘Anthony Shots.’ It was as Shots that he communicated with German.

Chillingly, ‘Shots’ was one of the last people to communicate with the girls before they took their fateful walk on Delphi’s Monon High Bridge Trail. Police interrogating Kline told him they did not believe he committed the murders but was protecting the identity of whoever did. The source then revealed that Kline has ‘cut a deal with prosecutors.’ ‘The search warrants [on Allen’s home and property] were carried out based on Kegan’s testimony,’ the source told DailyMail.com exclusively. Indiana State Police, Carroll County spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Piers would neither confirm nor deny any of the details when put to him by DailyMail.com. He said: ‘Law enforcement has not released any of those details or anything beyond what is in the probable cause.’

The source claimed that Kline, from whose devices police retrieved a slew of child videos, knows Allen, and that the men met when both lived in Peru, roughly 40 miles northwest of Delphi. The source also claimed that both men knew Ron Logan (pictured), whom police first pegged as a suspect in the killings after the girls’ bodies were found on his property, some 1,400 feet from his home.

An FBI search warrant served on Logan’s home and property dated March 17, 2017, revealed that on February 14, the day after the killings, Logan asked a relative to provide him with a false alibi. He told a cousin to say that a friend had picked him up and taken him to a fish store between 2.00pm and 2.30pm and that he didn’t return home until 5.30pm.

The last time the girls were known to be alive was at 2.13pm, when German made a brief cell phone recording of the now infamous ‘Bridge Guy’ approaching with the words: ‘Guys, down the hill.’ Logan’s alibi was shown to be a lie, and text messages retrieved from his phone showed that he was out of his house and ‘in the vicinity of the murders’ on the evening of February 13.

The FBI document also noted Logan asked his relative to lie for him the following morning, before the crimes were even discovered. Logan died at the age of 84 on January 24, 2022, and was never named as a suspect. But sources told DailyMail.com that Logan, who had a history of violence against women, was involved. Pictured: Richard Allen, 50, smiling with his wife – while over his shoulder, a police sketch strongly resembling him is posted on the wall inside Bob Matlock’s bar.

According to the source, investigators believe that the plan had been for Allen to kidnap the girls and bring them to Logan’s home where he and, allegedly Kline, would rape them. They said: ‘The girls were supposed to be kidnapped for the ring, but something went wrong, and he knifed and assaulted one and almost decapitated the other. ‘Logan and Kline never met the girls.’ Pictured: Family members of Liberty German and Abigail Williams at a press conference after Allen’s arrest.

Police have been tight lipped about the girls’ cause of death, saying only that there was ‘a lot of blood’ at the scene.’ But DailyMail.com was told that the murder weapon was a knife and that both girls ‘bled out.’ Speaking well ahead of the probable cause affidavit’s release, the source revealed that the girls were killed ‘near the river’ – information since confirmed – but then moved and posed, unclothed, under a tree. The FBI search warrant served on Logan’s home also included law enforcement’s belief that the killer may have taken ‘souvenirs.’ Pictured: Mike and Becky Patty, German’s grandparents, speak to the press after Allen’s arrest.

DailyMail.com was told that underwear and a cell phone were taken from the scene. The probable cause affidavit also revealed that one of the girls could be heard saying the word ‘gun.’ According to the source, the killer was wearing a gun on his waistband. Police recovered a Sig Sauser Model P226 as well as knives from Allen’s home. Allen’s wife Kathy, 50, confirmed that the weapons were his. Forensic testing of an unspent round found near the girls’ bodies showed that it had been ‘cycled through’ Allen’s gun. Pictured: Libby, left, and Abby, right.

According to the probable cause affidavit, even though the bullet had never been fired, it bore tell-tale and unique signs of having been in Allen’s weapon. The affidavit stated: ‘Between October 14, 2022 and October 19, 2022, the Indiana State Police Laboratory performed an analysis on Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226. The laboratory performed a physical examination and classification of the firearm, function test, barrel and overall length measurement, test firing, ammunition component characterization, microscopic comparison and NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistic Information Network). The laboratory determined the unspent round located within two feet of Victim 2’s body had been cycled through Richard M. Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226.’ Pictured: Abbie was seen in a Snapchat video posted by her friend Libby in February 2017, moments before both were murdered.

Allen could not explain how a bullet that had been through his gun could have ended up there. He denied ever having been on the property or having lent his gun to anybody. Allen has strenuously denied any involvement in the killings, though he admitted to police that he was at the trail on the day that the girls went missing. According to the probable cause affidavit, several youngsters saw him there ahead of the murders. Pictured: Flowers were placed at the Monon High Bridge Trial in Delphi, Indiana, on October 31, 2022, near where Liberty and Abigail were last seen and where the bodies were discovered.

His lawyers say he’s simply ‘the wrong guy.’ They have dismissed the probable cause affidavit as ‘flimsy,’ and described the forensics relating to the unspent bullet as ‘junk science.’ A bond hearing for Allen, who is currently being held without bond, has been set for February 17 and he is set to go to trial March 20, 2023, though it could be moved back.