Delphi murders trial, Day 17: Defense rests. Final arguments Thursday
The defense rests Wednesday in the trial of Richard Allen, accused in the 2017 murders of Abby Williams and Libby German. Jury deliberations could start Thursday
Jurors could start deliberating as soon as Thursday in the case of Richard Allen, accused in the 2017 murders of Delphi eighth-graders Abby Williams and Libby German.
Brad Rozzi, one of the 52-year-old former CVS pharmacy clerk’s attorneys, opened Wednesday’s session – Day 17 in the trial – by telling Judge Fran Gull that the defense rested its case.
Prosecutors, scrambling a bit after the surprising announcement, called three rebuttal witnesses – including a psychiatrist who treated Allen while he was held in a solitary cell for months in a segregated unit of Westville Correctional Facility. The doctor added another confession from Allen onto a stack presented during the trial, this one from June 2023 when the psychiatrist had deemed that Allen was not showing signs of psychosis that clouded some of his previous self-incriminating statements from prison.
Things ended without the defense putting Allen on the stand before ending three weeks of testimony.
Gull sent the jurors back to their sequestered quarters at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, telling them to expect closing arguments Thursday. Gull said the prosecution and defense had agreed to keep their closings between 2 and 2½ hours, with a break for the jury in between.
Here are some of the highlights from Wednesday in Carroll Circuit Court.
PRISON PSYCHIATRIST ON ANOTHER ALLEN CONFESSION: Two days after a neuropsychologist testifying for the defense contended that fragile mental health exacerbated by solitary pre-conviction prison conditions were factors in a string of self-incriminating statements Allen made in 2023, the prosecution put Dr. John Martin on the stand as the trial’s final witness.
Martin, a psychiatrist working in the Indiana Department of Corrections, treated Allen at Westville Correctional Facility, seeing him 18 times in the 12 months Allen was in a segregated unit of the maximum security state prison.
Martin testified that Allen came to the prison with a medical history that included anxiety and depression. But he said Allen was doing well for the first months he was there, after his October 2022 arrest and a safekeeping order that sent him from the county jail to the Department of Corrections shortly after that.
Martin testified that he was called to Westville on April 13, 2023, to check on Allen, who he found lying naked on his mat, smeared with feces and signs that he’d been eating feces. Martin testified that he’d diagnosed Allen as psychotic at that point.
What followed were a series of involuntary injections of Haldol, an antipsychotic drug that targets symptoms including hallucinations and delusions. Martin said the first injections were daily, between April 14-17. Martin said once he was able to monitor the effect of Haldol on Allen, he prescribed long-term, 30-day treatments. Those 15 mg doses were administered April 18, May 18 and June 16, Martin testified.
Previous testimony and evidence in the trial had Allen making dozens of confessions in April , May and June 2023, including saying that he killed Abby and Libby, in phone calls to his family and in statements to the warden, a prison psychologist and guards assigned to monitor him as “suicide companions.”
Martin testified he observed improvements in the weeks that followed. Martin testified that he didn’t see signs of psychosis in follow-up visits – often done through the cell door – making notes in medical logs that Allen seemed coherent. Martin testified that during a check on the morning of June 20, 2023, he found that Allen had been sleeping well, eating most of his meals and had been meeting with Dr. Monica Wala, a prison psychologist. Martin said he made the decision to discontinue the monthly injections of Haldol.
“That day, he said something to me,” Martin testified about speaking with Allen on June 20, 2023. “‘I would like to apologize to the families of my victims.’ … Those were his words.”
Martin testified that the comment was unprompted.
(In a written report in Allen’s medical log, entered into evidence, Martin wrote that day about the confession, the new drug recommendation and that Allen had told him about suicidal ideations.)
Rozzi asked Martin about how much he knew about the conditions in the cell block where Allen was held. He asked the psychiatrist whether being confined to the solitary cell, under 24/7 video monitoring, could make someone’s mental condition worse. Martin agreed that that was possible.
Rozzi played a portion of a 21-minute video of Allen in the prison early afternoon of June 20, 2023. In it, Allen is strapped to a chair getting his blood pressure taken. Through much of the video, visible by more than half the courtroom, Allen looks catatonic, his head listing to one side at one point.
In the courtroom, Allen looked away. So did members of his family.
Rozzi asked Martin whether that was the same person he’d seen that day. Rozzi asked Martin whether the video made him reconsider his assessment.
“Yes,” Martin said.
OTHER WITNESSES: Two other witness were recalled shortly by the prosecution Wednesday.
Breann Wilber testified in the opening days of the trial, telling the court how, as a sophomore at Delphi Community High School in 2017, she and a friend had gone for hike on the Monon High Bridge Trail on Feb. 13, the day Abby Williams and Libby German went missing. She testified about a Snapchat photo she’d taken that day at the Freedom Bridge over the Hoosier Heartland Highway, as she walked from the town to the Monon High Bridge Trail.
Brian Harshman, an Indiana State Police master trooper and detective, testified during the trial about how investigators had collected more than 60 times Allen had implicated himself in the crime, including during calls made from the prison. Prosecutor Nick McLeland asked Harshman whether he’d monitored video footage of Allen since he’d been moved to the Cass County Jail in August 2024. That footage, attempted to get into evidence once earlier in the trial, was described earlier as including Allen making threats to staff and other behavior. Rozzi objected to the reference. Gull sustained the objection and told the jury to disregard that part of the testimony.
ONE FINAL (PROBABLY) RUN AT ODINISM, THIRD PARTY THEORY: After both sides had rested their cases and the jury had gone for the afternoon, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin took another shot 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. Baldwin told Gull that one of the people called out in defense motions in connected to the theory had ignored a subpoena to testify. Baldwin said the defense still wanted that opportunity to put him on the stand to answer questions about comments made to an investigator in an interview in early 2018 about whether, if traces of his spit were found on one of the girls but he could explain why, would he still be in trouble.
McLeland objected, saying both sides had presented their case. Gull asked what Baldwin though it would show. Baldwin said he want to get the man on the stand and find out where the questioning led – including whether the man might say he was at the murder scene in some fashion or was connected to others the defense has suggested might have been the actual killers.
Gull has ruled 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. Gull told Baldwin that a necessary nexus didn’t include connecting people who might be connected. She said she needed proof that there was nexus with the crime, itself. She said she hadn’t heard that.
DECORUM INSIDE THE COURTROOM: On Tuesday, Gull scolded those in the 72-seat gallery for talking during the court session, including when she met with attorneys for sidebars. On Wednesday, Carroll County sheriff’s deputies announced at each break that anyone caught talking or whispering while court was in session would get a tap on the shoulder and be escorted out of the courtroom, no questions asked. Things were quiet Wednesday. No one from the gallery was kicked out.
DECORUM OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE: New signs went up on a ramp to the Carroll County Courthouse entrance that prohibited lines forming before 7 a.m. Since the beginning of the trial, people looking to get one of the 24 public seats in the gallery – after accounting for seating reserved for families, credentialed media, the prosecutor and the defense – have been lining up early in the evening to camp out overnight. By the time court dismissed at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, a line of camp chairs had moved to the sidewalk along Franklin Street on the courthouse square, in hopes of a seat Thursday morning.
MORE COVERAGE
Day 16: Digital analyst says someone put headphones into Libby’s phone
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
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.