A first look at West Lafayette’s Public Safety Center plans

Plus, an appeal filed for Richard Allen in the Delphi murders of Abby Williams and Libby German. And West Lafayette offers a perk for early ed staff at Right Steps.

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APPEAL NOTICE FILED FOR RICHARD ALLEN IN DELPHI MURDERS CONVICTION

A notice of an appeal was filed Tuesday for Richard Allen, the 52-year-old Delphi man convicted in November in the 2017 murders of eighth-graders Libby German and Abby Williams near the Monon High Bridge Trail. The filing appeared on the Indiana Court of Appeals docket online Wednesday. Allen is serving a 130-year prison sentence for killing the girls.

The filing from attorneys Stacy Uliana and Mark Leeman, assigned to represent Allen in his appeal, did not include arguments.

Richard Allen

In February, Judge Fran Gull rejected a motion to correct errors filed by Allen’s defense team. His trial attorneys had asked Gull to vacate the conviction, raising questions about new evidence that pointed to holes in the prosecution’s timeline of the murders; an alleged confession by another man; and the process that landed the former clerk at the Delphi CVS in a state prison under a “safekeeping” order after he was arrested and charged in October 2022 – a situation they called pivotal in the case and that led to a state of psychosis and ensuing confessions between his arrest and his trial.

This week, Jennifer Auger, one of Allen’s trial attorneys, filed a motion asking Gull to reconsider timestamp evidence in security video footage of a neighbor’s white van pulling into a lane near the Monon High Bridge that the defense team argues throws off a timeline the state used to corroborate a confession investigators say Allen made to a prison psychologist. As of Wednesday, Gull had not ruled on that motion.

Libby German, left, and Abby Williams (Photos provided)

Also still in play in post-trial filings, Andrew Baldwin, one of three attorneys who defended Allen, last week asked Gull to hold a hearing to force Prosecutor Nick McLeland to preserve and produce potentially exculpatory letters received before and during a trial that started in October 2024. McLeland has asked the court to reject Baldwin’s demands for letters sent by Ricci Davis, an inmate serving a 50-year sentence at New Castle Correctional Facility for dealing methamphetamine. Baldwin argued that Ron Logan, who owned the land where the girls were found and who died in 2022, confessed to the murders while talking with Davis when they were serving time in the same Indiana prison in May 2017. Baldwin argued that letters Davis said he wrote to the Carroll County prosecutor, containing information only the killer could have known, were never flagged or given to Allen’s defense. McLeland accused Baldwin of trying to throw around unverified allegations and that Davis had failed polygraph tests and that physical evidence found at the crime scene on Logan’s land did not support Davis’ account. Baldwin argued that it wasn’t up to the prosecutor to decide what was and what wasn’t exculpatory evidence and accused McLeland of a pattern of holding things back. Baldwin contended that information in the letters could have changed the defense strategy and, even now, could affect the approach to an appeal. As of Wednesday, court records didn’t show that Gull had ruled in that matter.

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(Image: DLZ)

A FIRST LOOK AT WEST LAFAYETTE’S PUBLIC SAFETY CENTER PLANS

Designs for West Lafayette’s Public Safety Center – including a replacement for Fire Station No. 2 combined with an expansion of the city’s police station on Navajo Street – started to come together Wednesday.

The complex will include 132,537 square feet of space for the fire and police departments on 2.6 acres, including ground where West Lafayette City Hall once stood, according to plans presented Wednesday to the West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission.

“We’re taking nearly every inch we can for this facility,” Stephen Kromkowski, vice president and principal architect for DLZ, the firm doing design work, said Wednesday morning.