Delphi murder trial, Day 7: How investigation tied a bullet found at scene to Richard Allen’s gun
Former state police forensic firearms examiner spends 6½ hours on the stand Friday, detailing – and defending – the process of comparing an unspent round found next to Abby and Libby to Allen’s gun
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DELPHI MURDER TRIAL, DAY 7: HOW INVESTIGATION TIED BULLET FOUND AT SCENE TO RICHARD ALLEN’S GUN
Day 7 of the trial of Richard Allen, a 52-year-old Delphi man accused of the murders of teens Abby Williams and Libby German, turned into a 6½-hour marathon testimony of a former Indiana State Police forensic firearms examiner who testified that an unspent round found near the girls’ bodies in 2017 was cycled through a pistol found in Allen’s house during an October 2022 search.
Melissa Oberg, who spent 17 years at the ISP police lab in Indianapolis that included the time of the girls’ murders and Allen’s arrest in two years ago this week, on Friday went deep into the weeds on the Carroll Circuit Court witness stand about firing mechanisms, ammunition and tool markings prosecutors contend tie the former CVS clerk to the crime.
In play is an unspent Winchester .40-caliber Smith & Wesson cartridge investigators say they found at the crime scene Feb. 14, 2017, in the woods near Delphi’s Monon High Bridge Trail. The girls were murdered by massive cuts to their necks, according to autopsy results revealed this week in Allen’s trial.
But prosecutors had Oberg take a full morning to methodically walk through testing on the .40-caliber cartridge found on the ground that day. And Allen’s defense team spent the rest of the day trying to undercut her findings about a piece of evidence they’ve called the “magic bullet.”
Oberg testified that she received the cartridge on Feb. 17, 2017, in the lab in Indianapolis, after it had gone through testing for DNA at the ISP lab. (She said her work was second in that order because “I am a DNA destroyer,” given the testing she did.)
Oberg testified that that day she’d received the round found at the scene. She said she also received a Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, plus a magazine and 15 Federal .40-caliber Smith & Wesson cartridges. Later in February 2017, she received two more handguns – a Smith & Wesson M&P 40 and a Sig Sauer P239 – connected to the Delphi case. Where those guns came from and how they were tied to the investigation wasn’t mentioned in court Friday.
Oberg testified that the cartridge was in good condition, with no corrosion, fibers or biological material, and no sign of being out in the elements.
“Basically it was unremarkable to me,” Oberg said.
Oberg said she found three marks on the round that would have come from the pistols’ ejector, which throws a spent cartridge out of the gun. She testified she found three other tool marks from the extractor, which remove spent casings from the chamber.
Oberg testified that tests of the three guns did not provide a match for the cartridge found at the crime scene, though she didn’t completely rule out two of them.
On Oct. 14, 2022, Oberg received a Sig Sauer P226, a gun found during a search of Allen’s home. That one, she testified was a match “based on sufficient agreement of quantity and quality of marks” on the cartridge. She testified that her supervisor verified the conclusion with his own check of the tests.
“So, ‘sufficient agreement’ is the phrase of art here?” Brad Rozzi, one of Allen’s attorneys, asked at the start of a cross-examination spanning more than three hours.
Oberg said the term was standard for the industry when there’s a match.
Rozzi question the conclusion, as well as the method of matching tool markings as a subjective process that has been called into question.
Rozzi questioned how closely Oberg worked on cases on behalf of Indiana State Police, including the Delphi murder case where details from the field were shared with those in the lab. Oberg testified that she’d heard a bit about the case when she first received the cartridge in 2017, but that practice had been phased out since then. She said the case details didn’t affect her analysis.
Rozzi noted the amount of training and proficiency testing Oberg had on rounds fired from a gun.
“Is there proficiency testing for unspent rounds?” Rozzi asked.
“No, there isn’t,” Oberg said.
Later, Jim Luttrell, a member of the prosecution team, asked Oberg what would have happened if she’d been able to test the Sig Sauer P226 from Allen’s house with the other three that came to her early in the investigation. She testified that she would have been able to exclude the other ones, after testing Allen’s gun.
JUROR LEAVES THE TRIAL: Midday Friday, the jury returned to the courtroom from a break with 15 instead of 16 jurors. Judge Fran Gull said after Friday’s session that the juror left due to a family emergency. That leaves the trial with 12 jurors and three alternates, all from Allen County. The jury has been sequestered in the Delphi area since Oct. 17, the day before opening statements last week.
COMING SATURDAY: With no witness list available in the case, it’s been tough to predict what’s coming day to day in the prosecution’s case. On Friday, as testimony dragged on about the unspent .40 caliber Smith & Wesson cartridge found at the crime scene, Gull mentioned to Prosecutor Nick McLeland that she didn’t see time to call the state’s DNA expert. McLeland said that witness would be scheduled for Saturday. Court resumes for a half-day at 9 a.m. Saturday in Carroll Circuit Court. The trial is scheduled through Nov. 15.
MORE COVERAGE:
Day 6: How attention turned to a tip Richard Allen gave in the days after the murders
Day 5: Autopsy photos, another ‘Bridge Guy’ witness and new info from Libby’s phone
Day 2: Delphi murder trial: Family friend who found Abby, Libby tells about that day
Day 1: Families testify about Abby, Libby’s last day as Delphi murder trial opens
Final day, pretrial: Composite sketches, other unresolved issues before opening statements Friday
EARLY VOTING OPTIONS SATURDAY AND BEYOND
Here are the options Saturday, Oct. 26, to vote ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
9 a.m.-1 p.m., West Point Fire Station, 4949 Indiana 25 S., West Point
9 a.m.-1 p.m., Otterbein United Methodist Church, 405 Oxford St., Otterbein
9 a.m.-1 p.m., Clarks Hill Christian Church, 9510 Pearl St., Clarks Hill
9 a.m.-4 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette;
For more about finding what races are on your ballot, candidate Q&As and a complete list of where to vote on or before Nov. 5, check this voter guide.
Thanks for sponsorship help with this edition from Purdue Presidential Lecture Series, presenting Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse. Learn more and reserve your seat: https://www.purdue.edu/president/lecture-series/a-conversation-with-frank-wilczek/.
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