Delphi murders trial: Day 15
Highlights: Neuropsychologist details Richard Allen’s decline as confessions came. More videos from Westville cell. Sister, daughter dismiss what Allen said amid confessions. The return of the van.
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DELPHI MURDERS TRIAL: DAY 15
Day 15 in the Delphi murders trial Monday was the fourth featuring defense witnesses in the case against Richard Allen, 52, of Delphi, accused of the 2017 murders of eighth-graders Abby Williams and Libby German.
Here are some highlights in day that ended early but still packed a lot in.
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST ON ALLEN’S DECLINE IN PRISON: Dr. Polly Westcott, a neuropsychologist from Carmel and on the stand as a $450-and-hour expert for the defense, outlined her review of Allen’s mental health history before he was arrested and how solitary conditions in Westville Correctional Facility exacerbated his anxiety and depression.
Westcott called the access to video of Allen while in prison “an enormous amount” that contributed to her assessment.
Westcott testified that Allen reported intense anxiety dating back to childhood, when he would go to school fearful that he’d never come home. She said he had a constant concern about what people thought of him and believing they thought the worst, even when there was no evidence of it. She testified that the condition played out in his work, where supervisors liked the job he did well enough that he continued to be promoted into managerial roles – positions that stressed him out enough with self-doubt and fear of failure that he would go home and curl up in a ball.
Westcott also said Allen showed signs of dependent personality disorder, relying on reinforcement from his wife, Kathy, and his mother, Janis.
“Essentially, he was a fragile egg,” Westcott testified. In prison, when his supports were gone, “things fell apart.”
She testified that Allen showed signs of slowing thought, lost problem solving, delusions and fixation on self-blame and guilt.
Westcott testified that Allen showed signs of psychosis between December 2022 and March 2023, with those really setting in around April, May and June 2023. Solitary conditions in a segregated unit at Westville contributed, she said.
“It’s like a funhouse when you were a kid – you don’t know what’s real and what’s not,” Westcott testified.
Westcott also contrasted a confession Dr. Monica Wala, Allen’s prison psychologist, said he offered her in May 2023 – one that came in a seemingly smooth, orderly narrative – to his more disjointed behavior at the time, including drinking from the toilet and smearing himself with feces.
Wescott testified that she didn’t find evidence that Allen was faking or exaggerating his symptoms, as others has suggested in testimony in the past week.
Stacey Diener, part of the prosecution’s team, asked Wescott whether Allen might have transferred that dependent personality disorder to Dr. Wala, finding the confidante he needed.
Westcott said that was possible, but she said it wasn’t likely for Allen, who was suspicious of those who weren’t in an inner-circle he could trust.
MORE VIDEO OF ALLEN IN WESTVILLE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY: After a Saturday morning spent watch raw video Richard Allen’s time outside his cell at Westville Correctional Facility – the place where was sent to wait for his trial under a Carroll County safekeeping order, and the place his defense attorney say drove him to make what they’ve call coerced confessions – jurors watched scenes of him in his solitary cell.
Max Baker, an intern for Allen’s defense team, testified that he stitched together prison video from 2-7 p.m. April 12, 2023, and 8-10 a.m. May 25, 2023. He testified that he’d done the same, pulling in video in five-minute chunks from hundreds of hours from a surveillance camera in Allen’s cell, to show his life between November 2022, when he was sent to Westville, until later in 2023, when he was sent to Wabash Valley Correctional Facility and eventually to the Cass County Jail.
As with Saturday’s footage, a video screen was positioned so only the jury, the judge and those participating in the trial could see it. The videos were presented in fast-forward format, with defense attorney Brad Rozzi skipping ahead several times. In all, jurors saw roughly 25 minutes of the in-cell coverage, again over the prosecutor’s objection.
Jurors took notes. One put her hand over her mouth several times. And one juror put his head in his hands and looked down for extended periods.
Prosecutor Nick McLeland asked Baker if he was trying to make Allen the victim, when the real victims were Abby Williams and Libby German. Baker said that with the in-cell and out-of-cell footage, he tried to give an idea of what Allen’s life was like. Baker testified that meant showing different aspects that had come up during the trial, including his meetings with the prison psychologist, getting medical treatment, showering, being tased by guards and scenes of him drinking from his toilet and banging his head against the wall.
“Did you choose these 15 videos to show him in the worst conditions possible?” McLeland asked, suggesting Baker was trying to “curry favor with the jury.”
Baker said that wasn’t the case and that he’d pulled together other video that showed what might be considered more regular or mundane routines in the segregated unit at Westville.
“You didn’t want the jury to see those other videos,” McLeland said.
“As far as I can tell, you didn’t, either,” Baker said, noting that the prosecutor had objected to showing any of the videos. Baker said he’d found video “that showed a lot more” and that he’d been prepared to show the jury more.
“Did you choose these videos to show the jury the truth?” Rozzi asked him.
Baker said he had.
ALLEN’S SISTER, DAUGHTER TESTIFY: Jaime Jones, Allen’s sister, and Brittany Zapanta, his daughter, testified after their names were linked to reports of self-incriminating statements Allen made while being held in Department of Corrections facilities. In those, witnesses last week contended that Allen confessed that he’d molested his sister and daughter. On the stand, Jones and Zapanta said that didn’t happen. Asked if they loved Allen, they both said they did. Asked if they’d lie for him, both said they wouldn’t.
THE MAN WITH VAN RETURNS: Last seen in the court, Brad Weber, a Delphi resident who lives just southeast of the south end of the Monon High Bridge, was getting agitated with a line of defense questioning that challenged the story about when arrived home on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
Weber – more specifically his 2000 Ford Econovan – became a key piece in the prosecution’s case after investigators looked closer at one of the confessions Allen offered to Dr. Monica Wala, a prison psychologist. Wala testified earlier in the trial that in the confession, Allen told her he’d intended to rape the girls after forcing them from the Monon High Bridge. But she testified that he told her he got scared when he saw a van.
Weber testified that he got off his shift at the Lafayette Subaru plant at 2:02 p.m. Feb. 13, 2017, and drove home. He said it took 20 to 25 minutes to get home. (Libby German shot a final video – the one capturing the image and voice of a suspect known as Bridge Guy – at the southwest end of the Monon High Bridge at 2:13 p.m. Feb. 13, 2017.)
On the stand Monday, Weber stuck with that timeline.
Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen’s defense attorneys, asked why Weber had told investigators in 2017 that he’d made stops that day to work on some of the approximately 35 ATM machines he maintained and stocked with cash. Weber said he couldn’t remember all he’d been asked and who had asked it. Weber testified he spoke to investigators almost daily after the murders, including being stopped on County Road 625 West to have his car searched at one point.
Asked later by Prosecutor Nick McLeland about telling officers on Feb. 17, 2013, that he’d come straight home from work in the van, Weber said that’s what he’d said to them. Weber testified that he’d taken a nap when he got home on Feb. 13, 2017, awakened when someone knocked on his door saying they were looking for a couple of girls mission from the trails.
Last week, Rozzi asked Brian Harshman, a master trooper with the Indiana State Police, whether the timeline, featuring Allen getting spooked by a van, would fall apart if it’s shown that Weber didn’t come straight home from work, even if it just meant stopping for gas or lingering in the parking lot to talk to a coworker. Harshman testified that it wouldn’t.
MORE ON THAT VAN: The defense put former Delphi Police Chief Steve Mullin, now an investigator for the Carroll County prosecutor, back on the stand to ask about the van. Testimony by Harshman pegged the van as a piece of the narrative only the killer would know.
On Monday, Baldwin pressed Mullin about whether the white van really was information hadn’t been talked about at some point. Baldwin asked Mullin whether that detail seemingly novel recently to investigators had the floating around on Reddit, social media and other outlets years ago.
“Did you even look?” Baldwin asked.
“I didn’t,” Mullin said.
Baldwin’s upshot: Dr. Wala, Allen’s prison psychologist, testified she was a true crime fan and kept close tabs on the Delphi murders and Allen’s case. Could Wala have seen conversations about a van in social media or online conversations about the case and told Allen about it?
ONE MORE ATTEMPT AT ODINISM, THIRD PARTY THEORY: After the jury had left for the day, Baldwin made another run at an offer of proof to introduce evidence about a third-party theory that Abby and Libby were victims of a ritual killing done by people practicing Odinism/old Norse paganism. Judge Fran Gull has knocked down each of those attempts, ruling that the burden was on Allen’s attorneys “to show a nexus between Odinism, cult or ritualistic killing” or any of the names of the men attached to the third-party theory.
On Monday, Baldwin asked about a couple of possibilities. In one, he referenced testimony from a former ISP detective during a pretrial hearing, in which he said a suspect in the alleged Odinist plot had asked him after an interview in early 2018 whether, if traces of his spit were found on one of the girls but he could explain why, would he still be in trouble. Baldwin said he wanted to asked investigators whether that sort of spit evidence would have been used against Baldwin in trial. He asked the same about recreations of the crime scene posted on social media. Would that have been used against Allen at trial if found among his things?
“We’ve had this conversation a thousand times,” Gull told Baldwin. She said the defense needed to show a nexus between the crime and the Odinist plot.
“I believe there’s more than a nexus,” Baldwin said. He said he wasn’t sure what Gull’s definition of nexus was, though.
Either way, Baldwin said he wanted the question on the record “for the Court of Appeals.”
MORE COVERAGE
Day 14: Jurors see conditions defense says played a role in Allen’s confessions
Day 13: First full day for the defense
Day 11: ‘I killed Abby and Libby:’ Reports of confessions kept rolling, these from prison psychologist
Day 10: Interrogation denials and confessions in a state prison
Day 9: DNA doesn’t come back to Richard Allen, state witness says
Day 7: How investigation tied a bullet found at scene to Richard Allen’s gun
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
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