Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County courthouse following a hearing, Nov. 22, 2022, in Delphi, Ind. Allen is expected to be moved out of an Indiana Department of Correction facility to a county jail. The Associated Press File Photo
A special judge approved a request to move the man charged in the killings of two teenage girls out of a state prison to a county jail on Thursday.
Special Judge Frances Gull, of Allen County, approved a defense motion to vacate a safekeeping order filed for Richard Allen, 51, which kept him in the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction. Allen, who had worked and lived in the Delphi area, was arrested in October 2022 and charged in the 2017 slayings of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German.
He’s pled not guilty to murder charges. In March, Gull approved two additional murder charges against Allen.
A relative of one of the teenagers dropped them off on Feb. 13, 2017, at a hiking trail near their hometown of Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. They were reported missing that evening after they failed to show up at a location where they had arranged to be picked up. Their bodies were found the next day in a rugged, heavily wooded area near the trail.
The killings have haunted Delphi, a city of about 3,000 where Allen worked at a drugstore, and the case has been closely watched in the state and nationwide.
Gull issued a gag order in December 2022 barring attorneys, law enforcement officials, court personnel, the coroner and the girls’ family members from commenting on the case to the public or the media in any form, including social media.
Prosecutors had sought the order, citing intense public scrutiny and media attention. Gull was brought in as a special judge to oversee the case after a Carroll County judge recused himself.
With Gull’s order on Thursday, the third day of court hearings for the case, Allen will be moving out of the IDOC facility in Sullivan County to a county jail, leaving the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office responsible for his custody and determining where he will be housed.
The safekeeping order had been in effect because Carroll County Sheriff’s Department said it did not have enough staff or adequate facilities to safely house Allen. Allen’s defense attorneys argued his detention in Sullivan County, located more than 200 miles and several hours away from his family and attorneys, negatively impacted his health and his attorneys’ ability to prepare a defense, WTHR reported.
During one of the earlier days of the hearings, Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett said the Carroll County Jail would not house Allen, though he added that he would speak with the Cass County Sheriff’s Office about possibly housing Allen in Cass County. However, on Thursday night Liggett declined to tell WTHR which county jail Allen would be moved to or when.
Testimony during the hearings in Carroll County also included accusations of discussions of Odinsim and ritualistic killings, whether other suspects should be on trial and evidence being withheld. Allen’s attorneys also argued the case should be dismissed.
Defense expert Dawn Perlmutter, the author of a book on ritualistic crime scene investigation, said Williams and German’s deaths were “textbook examples” of ritualistic murders. The bodies were staged with branches placed on them in a way that resembled symbols, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Perlmutter also said she reviewed autopsy records, crime scene photos and social media posts of some of the alleged Odinists — members of a pagan Norse religion hijacked by white nationalists — the defense contends may have been involved in the deaths, which showed images of runes and symbols.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said the findings were based on a review of a limited set of evidence. He also sought to discredit Perlmutter by eliciting testimony that she reached the same conclusion before she saw any evidence in the case, when she appeared on Court TV nearly a year ago.
McLeland also said the defense team failed to place any of the alleged Odinists at the crime scene on Feb. 13, 2017, when the teens disappeared while hiking along the Monon High Bridge trail in Delphi. He also said the expert didn’t look at the alibi of a Logansport man the defense says should’ve been the primary suspect. Police allegedly cleared the man.
Prosecutors ultimately argued that Gull should bar any testimony or mention of Odinists at the trial. The judge did not rule on that request.
Allen’s defense team also accused investigators of intentionally hiding evidence that could prove their client’s innocence. They claim the Logansport man is an Odinist, was never “meaningfully questioned” by law enforcement and that the contents of his phone were never extracted despite investigators obtaining data from the 101 persons’ phones during the investigation.
Attorney Andrew Baldwin of Franklin said it included practically everyone but the Logansport man, whose son dated Williams and had posted an image of runes on his Facebook page.
Jennifer Jones Auger, another defense attorney, said wading through the 26 terabytes of data it received from the state was “like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Hundreds of documents were labeled by numbers, making it difficult for the defense attorneys to analyze the records and build their case, she said.
McLeland said the request is “moot” because the state has provided defense attorneys with all the records they’ve requested, later adding that it was not the state’s job to organize the data for the defense.
Allen’s trial is set to begin Oct. 14.
