Defense wants jurors to tour Delphi murder scene
Defense wants jurors to tour Delphi murder scene
Richard Allen’s attorneys ask court to take jurors to Monon High Bridge, sites key in 2017 murders of Abby and Libby. Plus, Purdue’s new U.S. News ranking, WL school board candidate forum, more.
This edition is sponsored by the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, presenting Art on the Wabash. The juried art fair will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, at Tapawingo Park in West Lafayette. Admission is free. For more, check out Art on the Wabash here.
DEFENSE WANTS JURY TO TOUR DELPHI MURDER SCENE
Richard Allen’s attorneys this week asked that jurors selected next month in his murder case be taken to several key locations on and near Delphi’s Monon High Bridge Trail, where Delphi eighth-graders were last seen before being killed in February 2017.
In a motion filed Monday, attorneys for the 52-year-old former CVS clerk asked that jurors get firsthand view of the Freedom Bridge – which runs over Indiana 25/Hoosier Heartland Highway as a centerpiece of Delphi’s trail system – the Monon High Bridge and the site on private property near Deer Creek where the girls were found a day after being dropped off to walk the trail.
Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen’s attorneys, also asked the court to allow the jurors to see the site where a CPS building stood at the time of the murders, where prosecutors say witnesses saw a vehicle that resembled one driven by Allen.
“The view would be requested as it would greatly aid a jury’s understanding of evidence presented at trial, including observing and feeling the unique topography of the land, something that cannot be understood from photographs and video,” the motion read.
Allen’s attorneys wrote that the sites were within two miles of the Carroll County Courthouse and that getting jurors to and from the sites, along with the viewing, “could easily be completed in under 90 minutes.”
Gull had not ruled on the request as of Tuesday morning.
Allen was arrested and charged with the murders in October 2022, more than five years after the girls were killed. Court documents laid out that investigators believed Allen was the man shown in Libby German’s cellphone footage walking across the Monon High Bridge – on the opposite side of where the official trail ends – and kidnapping the girls, telling them, “Guys … down the hill,” and leading them to where their murders occurred near Deer Creek.
Investigators tied Allen to the scene after revisiting an interview with him in the days after the murders, when he told police he’d been on the trail that day, going to look at fish from the bridge, but had not seen the girls. Investigators say witness descriptions put Allen there. They also pointed to the discovery of an unspent bullet that they say they found near the girls’ bodies in February 2017 and that matched a handgun Allen owned, according to a probable cause affidavit made public after charges were filed.
The defense team has argued in pretrial motions and hearings that Allen couldn’t have committed the crime in the timeframe laid out by investigators, arguing that terrain and other circumstances point to murders done with more than one person involved.
Jury selection is scheduled to start Oct. 14 in Allen County, the home court of Judge Fran Gull. Jurors selected are expected to come to Delphi for a trial scheduled to run into mid-November in Carroll Circuit Court.
I got a few thoughts about the jury field trip from Barbara MacDonald, who has been covering the case for CourtTV and had up-close visits to the Monon High Bridge and the rugged woods leading to the crime scene in her work on the “Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders” podcast.
MacDonald said jury visits to crime scenes is precedented, including famously in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the ‘90s.
“The logistics in this case are going to make it rather difficult,” MacDonald said.
She said that would be beyond security the judge likely would impose to close off the huge area so jurors are photographed.
“It's not an easy walk, as you well know, to go from the Freedom Bridge to the Monon High Bridge, cross it, go down the south end – as everyone assumes was the path of the girls and the killer that day – cross the creek and end up on Ron Logan's land,” MacDonald said. “I did that walk, and I found it very challenging. I needed help.”
The trails and bridge look different today than they did when the girls were on it in February 2017.
The city of Delphi dedicated a 1.5-miles stretch of the Monon High Bridge Trail in September 2023, after a renovation via city, Indiana Landmarks and the state’s Next Level Trails funding. Money for the project included a $1.25 million grant to Delphi from the state’s trail program and $248,000 from North Central Health Services for the High Bridge decking and railing.
The work included fresh pavement leading from each side of the Freedom Bridge that spans the Hoosier Heartland Highway, trailhead and parking improvements at the city’s Miller Park and Bison Plaza, improved lighting, trail security cameras and new decking and railing on the western edge of the Monon High Bridge, which had been a de facto pedestrian crossing for ages.
The Monon High Bridge, built in 1891 and abandoned as a daily route in 1987 by CSX, became a destination spot for local hikers who used the old rail line as a trail. The tracks were removed in 1992. Work to save the Monon High Bridge, once listed by Indiana Landmarks as one of the state’s more endangered structures, started in earnest in 2021, when Indiana Landmarks and other preservation groups started negotiations with CSX. In 2017, CSX agreed to transfer the bridge to Indiana Landmarks, which stabilized a pier that had been deteriorating.
“I'm sure the jurors would be told what it looked like and maybe even shown video or images ahead of time of what it looked like at the time,” MacDonald said. “But that might give them a false sense that this is a more secure area than it was in 2017.”
PURDUE AT NO. 46 IN NEW U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT RANKING
Purdue slipped three spots, from No. 43 to No. 46, among 434 U.S. universities in the 2025 Best Colleges rankings released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report. (The No. 43 ranking had been Purdue best in the U.S. News rankings, according to the university, following a year when it had been ranked 51st.) Purdue tied at 46th with Lehigh University, University of Washington, University of Georgia and Wake Forest. The annual rankings continued to have Purdue’s undergraduate program as the only public school in the state in the Top 50. Indiana University came in at No. 73, unchanged from the previous year. Notre Dame, up two spots to No. 18, was top ranked among schools in Indiana. Princeton was back at No. 1 among all schools. Among other highlights in the rankings for Purdue: The campus was No. 18 among public schools and was considered ninth more innovative in the country – a mark the university was touting as its seventh 10th straight. Purdue rounded up a breakdown of Top 10 rankings among its programs in a release Tuesday morning. For the full list from U.S. News & World Report, here’s a link.
WEST LAFAYETTE SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATE FORUM
Candidates for West Lafayette school board are scheduled for a forum at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30, at West Lafayette City Hall, 222 N. Chauncey Ave. The election will have six candidates, including two incumbents, up for four seats on the seven-member board. On the ballot in the nonpartisan race: Incumbents Amy Austin and Yue Yin, along with Maria Koliantz, George Lyle, David Purpura and Beau Scott. The forum will be moderated by David Sanders, a West Lafayette City Council member. For more on the candidates: “Crowded fields: Meet the LSC, West Side school board candidates.”
THOUGHTS ARE WITH GENE KEADY: … after this news Monday, via the Purdue basketball program.
Thanks to this edition’s sponsor, the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, presenting Art on the Wabash. The juried art fair will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, at Tapawingo Park in West Lafayette. Admission is free. For more, check out Art on the Wabash here.
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https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2024/09/23/few-providers-sought-emergency-relief-under-managed-care-fewer-got-it/
As a subscriber and appreciative reader, I decided to bring this hardship to your attention. I have included the above link for you to peruse, Dave, thought you might find this worth exploring on behalf of Tippecanoe County. Those who work for Area IV are not allowed to speak to this tragedy on behalf of their clients. But as a reporter perhaps you will find it interesting and an unspeakably tragic on behalf of those who have lost their managed care due to measures designed to cut funding.
Rev. Denise Frank