Families testify about Abby, Libby’s last day as Delphi murder trial opens
‘The last thing she said to me was, ‘Grandma, it will be OK.’
Family members of Abby Williams and Libby German took the stand Friday to retell the last moments they saw the girls – best friends and eighth-graders at Delphi Community Middle School – and a desperate search when they went missing, as the trial for Richard Allen, a 52-year-old former CVS clerk accused of murdering them in 2017, started in Carroll Circuit Court.
In a trial expected to last into mid-November, here were some of the highlights from the courtroom Friday.
THE OPENING STATEMENTS, THE PROSECUTION: Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told the jurors selected from Allen County and sequestered near Delphi for the duration of trial that the case was about three things: “Bridge Guy, a bullet and the brutal murder of two girls.”
According to media pool reports from Friday morning, McLeland described Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, as friends who were always together – more like sisters.
McLeland told the jurors that Abby and Libby had gone to walk the Monon High Bridge Trail on a Monday off from school – “a nice summer day in the middle of winter.” They crossed the abandoned rail bridge, a trestle that stood 60 feet above Deer Creek and the woods beyond it – taking photos and posting to Snapchat as they went.
Along the way, McLeland said, a man followed the girls across the bridge, pulled a gun and told them – as video was recording on Libby’s phone – “Guys … down the hill.”
“As he does this, the video on Libby German’s phone shuts off,” McLeland said, according to media pool reports. “Out of fear, the girls comply. … He had the power and the fear and forced them down the hill.”
A search for the girls went until 2 a.m. Feb. 14, after they didn’t come back when they said they would. Later on Feb. 14, searchers found the girls. McLeland said Libby was naked, covered in blood with her neck slit. Abby was wearing Libby’s sweatshirt, jeans, her own shoes and no socks, her neck also cut. The rest of the clothes were found in the creek, McLeland told jurors.
Prosecutor charged Allen in October 2022 – 5½ years after the murders – saying they’d revisited an account he gave to investigators in 2017 that put him on the trail that day. According to pool media reports, McLeland said jurors would hear from witnesses who said they saw a man resembling Allen walking near the trail, muddy and covered in blood like he had just slaughtered a pig.
McLeland told jurors about an unspent bullet found near the girls’ bodies and how a search of Allen’s house turned up a handgun they’ll show matches it.
“For five years, he lived in this community,” McLeland said, according to media pool reports. “He worked in this community. He hid in plain sight. … The last face the girls saw before their throats were slit was Richard Allen's face.”
During McLeland’s opening statement, Allen – who’d strode into court unshackled with khaki pants and a buttoned down shirt with a purple checked pattern – shook his head at some of the allegations, according to media pool reports.
THE OPENING STATEMENTS, THE DEFENSE: Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen’s attorneys, had said during jury selection that he hoped jurors could wait to make up their mind through weeks of the state’s case until the defense is able present its side. On Friday, he came back to that idea.
“Richard Allen is truly innocent,” Baldwin said, according to media pool reports. “From the evidence and the lack of evidence, it may be hard to truly believe, but we ask you to wait. … We want the truth to come out in this courtroom for the families and all of you. Because it is truly important.”
Baldwin said that “this case was messed up from the beginning.” He said evidence lost during the investigation and amid a “turf war” between state police and the FBI.
He said the defense would show that Allen did go to the trail that day, but he had left by 1:30 p.m.
Baldwin told the jury that the killer used two blades in the murder – one serrated, the other not – when the state will contend Allen used a box cutter. According to media pool reports, Baldwin told jurors that the defense would use cellphone data, security camera footage from a business on the road near the trailhead, flaws in what he called the “magic bullet” found near the girls and holes in the timeline presented by the state to provide reasonable doubt. He described a fresh scramble by the prosecution to collect DNA evidence from the girls’ family members for hair found on Abby’s hand when she died – a strand the defense says was not Allen’s.
FAMILY MEMBERS TESTIFY ABOUT THE GIRLS’ LAST DAY: Abby Williams spent that Sunday night at Libby German’s house, where she lived just outside Delphi with her grandparents, Mike and Becky Patty, her sister, Kelsi, her father, Derrick German, and her uncle.
After Libby’s father, Derrick German, made them a breakfast of banana pancakes, Libby and Abby asked Kelsi to come with them to the Monon High Bridge Trail that afternoon.

Kelsi Siebert, 17 and a high school junior in 2017, testified that she’d crossed the Monon High Bridge a year earlier at Libby’s urging. She said Libby – someone she described as “very brave” – handled it without a problem, while she had to take parts of it on her hands and knees to get over places with gaps big enough to fall through.
“I was scared. She wasn’t scared at all,” Siebert said. “She made me feel silly for not wanted to cross.”
Siebert testified that she agreed to take Libby and Abby and drop them off, as long as they arranged to get a ride home.
Becky Patty, Libby’s grandma, testified that she considered the trail to be a safe place for the girls to be. She testified that she’d told Libby to grab a jacket because it was still chilly.
“And the last thing she said to me was, ‘Grandma, it will be OK,’” Becky Patty said.
Derrick German agreed to pick them up, but only after he was done in Frankfort, about 25 miles away, taking photos of 18 houses for Becky Patty’s business. He testified that he told them it could take a couple of hours, but that the girls said they were fine adventuring.
Siebert testified that she drove the girls to the Mears entrance to the trails, off County Road 300 North, while Abby and Libby took pictures and posted them to Snapchat on the ride over. That was around 1:30 p.m. Feb. 13, 2017. Libby later posted a photo of Abby on the Monon High Bridge at 2:07 p.m.
Derrick German testified that he called Libby when he was a few minutes from the trailhead so they could start working their way back. Libby didn’t pick up. He called again when he got there. Still no answer, he testified. He said he started walking the trails, looking for them, first a short walk to Deer Creek, then to Freedom Bridge after running into Delphi resident Dave McCain, who told him he hadn’t seen two teenage girls at the High Bridge.
When he got back to his car, he called Becky Patty at 3:30 p.m. to ask if she’d heard from Libby.
“I knew that wasn’t Libby, so I knew we needed to go to the trails to look for them,” Becky Patty said.
Siebert said she initially thought maybe the girls were out in the woods and got hurt. After family members’ searched turned up nothing, the called the sheriff’s office for help before darkness set in.
Anna Williams, Abby's mom, testified that she got word that the girls hadn't come back and that police had been called as she finished a shift at work. At the time, she testified, she thought, “I'm not sure what these girls are up to. ... It's probably not that big a deal.”
A community search of the woods near the trails, called off late that night, resumed the next day until the girls were found. Becky Patty testified that when she got word from a friend, she couldn’t understand why police wouldn’t take her to where Libby was.
“You need to take me to Libby,” Becky Patty testified. “My sister was sitting there crying and all she could say was, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ … As I was sitting there, I saw the coroner’s truck driving by and that’s when I knew … they weren’t alive.”
THE POLICE SKETCHES CAN’T BE USED, JUDGE RULES: Judge Fran Gull, an Allen Superior Court judge appointed to the case, on Friday morning sided with prosecutors, ruling that police sketches of the Bridge Guy suspect released in 2017 and 2019 were out in the trial. The sketches played prominent roles in the search for the murder, used as centerpieces of posters and flyers calling for investigation tips. Prosecutors filed a motion early this week to keep Allen’s attorneys from folding the sketches into their opening statements. In a hearing Thursday in Allen County, they argued that the prosecution didn’t plan use the sketches as evidence and that the composites never were intended to identify a suspect. The defense argued that the prosecutor was trying to block the sketches because they didn’t look much like Allen. Gull announced her ruling from the bench just before opening statements Friday in Carroll Circuit Court, according to the media pool accounts. For more on the sketches and the arguments:
As of Friday, Gull had not ruled on a prosecution motion to block testimony from William Tobin, a forensic metallurgist the defense plans to call as a witness to question the accuracy and reliability of the state’s examination of a bullet found near the girls’ bodies. In the court documents, investigators pointed to an unspent, .40 caliber bullet they say that ballistic testing shows traces back to a Sig Sauer pistol police found at Allen’s Delphi home in October 2022, after officers circled back to talk with Allen more than five years after the crime. In a hearing Thursday in Allen Superior Court, prosecutors argued that Tobin isn’t qualified as an expert in the field of firearms examination. The defense team argued that that Tobin was in position to challenge what Allen’s attorneys called junk science examining tool markings on an unspent bullet.
ABOUT THAT ‘CIRCUS’ ATMOSPHERE: The queue to get one of the 24 seats available to the public – after the rest in the 72-seat gallery were set aside for family members, those tied to the prosecutors and defense team, and 12 slots for credentialed media – started Thursday night, roughly 12 hours before the court session started at 9 a.m. Friday. Some of the chaos police, the court and city officials expected didn’t materialize Friday. This, from WIBC’s Donnie Burgess, tapped into that:
WHAT’S NEXT: The trial continues with a Saturday morning session in Carroll Circuit Court. Judge Gull has the trial set for six days a week leading up to a scheduled Nov. 15 end. The Saturdays are expected to run from 9 a.m.-noon.
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