First 14 jurors selected in Delphi murder trial
Plus, the prosecutor offers new details in the case alleging how and why Abby Williams and Libby German went down the hill from the Monon High Bridge in February 2017
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FIRST 14 JURORS SELECTED IN DELPHI MURDERS TRIAL
The first day of jury selection in the trial of Richard Allen produced 14 jurors – eight women and six men – from an initial pool of 52 potential jurors interviewed during a nearly nonstop, eight-hour session in Allen Superior Court.
Tuesday brings another 50 potential candidates to find two more to make up a jury of 12, plus four alternates, who will be sequestered in Carroll County through Nov. 15 to hear the case of the February 2017 murders of Delphi eighth-graders Abby Williams and Libby German.
The first day of jury selection also provided a few hints about where the state and defense will be heading in coming five weeks, including new details about how the prosecutor plans to frame the murders more than 7½ years ago.
Prosecutor Nick McLeland and defense attorney Andrew Baldwin were allowed to give what Judge Fran Gull, an Allen Superior Court judge assigned to preside over the case, referred to as “mini-openers” at the start of Monday’s jury selection.
“This case is about three things,” McLeland said. “Bridge Guy, a bullet and the brutal murder of two girls.”
McLeland’s opener included bits that hadn’t been in previous court documents – including a probable cause affidavit unsealed for the public a month after Allen’s October 2022 arrest – or in pretrial hearings.
McLeland had said before that the case would include evidence that Allen was the man captured on Libby German’s cellphone walking across the Monon High Bridge. New was the prosecutor arguing that Allen used a gun to force the girls to go down the hill and into the woods near Deer Creek with the intent “to have his way” with them. McLeland said he was going to show that Allen was interrupted – the prosecutor didn’t let on how or why – prompting him to force the girls to cross the creek and undress. There, McLeland said, Allen slit their throats. The prosecutors said Allen tossed the clothing in the creek and casually left. McLeland came back to an unspent bullet found between the girls’ bodies, that the probable cause affidavit linked to a gun found at Allen’s home during an October 2022 search.
McLeland told jurors they would “hear Allen in his own words” that he killed Abby and Libby, referring to more than 60 alleged confessions to his wife, his mother, a prison psychologist and others.
“That he did it, how he did it and why he did it,” McLeland said. “He’s going to say it over and over and over, again.”
Baldwin countered in his mini-opener. Baldwin said jurors would hear Allen say they he killed the girls by shooting them in their backs. Baldwin said Allen’s confessions also included details about sexually assaulting the girls and burying them in a shallow grave. The problem there, Baldwin said, is that medical data will show that the girls weren’t killed with a gun. And, he said, there was no evidence of sexual assault and that the girls were found unburied.
Baldwin said the defense would show that Allen had been “languishing in deteriorating conditions,” after a county safekeeping order sent him from a cell in a county prison to solitary holding for months in the Westville Correctional Facility, a state prison.
“These are the ingredients for false confessions,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said the defense also would show investigators’ confusion about what to do with data from one of the girls’ cellphones that, had it been figured out, would have never led to the arrest of Allen.
Both sides also rattled off lists of potential witnesses in the case, with at least 60 from McLeland and more than 100 from defense attorney Brad Rozzi. The two lists had some overlap.
Real opening statements are expected Friday morning in Carroll Circuit Court in Delphi.
Questions for potential jurors: Once selected, the 16 jurors will be sworn in Thursday in Allen County before being brought to Carroll County, 92 miles away, to live, eat and sleep for the duration of the trial. Gull said jurors would get a call from a bailiff this week with a list of what to pack and bring.
Five rounds of questioning of potential jurors – with no lunch and a single, 10-minute break – gave more hints about the strategies of the defense and prosecution.
From the defense: Rozzi asked whether potential jurors thought flight would be among the natural reactions after committing a crime. (In this case, Allen, a former clerk in Delphi’s CVS store, lived and worked in the community.) He asked how jurors would take it if Allen didn’t defend himself by testifying during the trial. The defense team, saying they understood it could take weeks for the prosecution to make its case, also asked potential jurors whether they could wait to hear Allen’s response before making up their minds.
From the prosecutor: McLeland asked each round about how jurors would take it if they didn’t see DNA connected to the crime. Same goes with a murder weapon.
Richard Allen, in civilian clothes: Allen wore what looked like a new-out-of-the-package button down shirt with a pair of tan pants and a brown belt. It was the first time since his arrest in October 2022 that Allen has appeared in court without jail or prison smocks. Allen spent the lone 10-minute break in eight hours of Monday’s jury selection, stretching and walking near the defense table, alternately taking drinks from bottled water and casually putting his unshackled hands into his pockets as he talked with members of the defense team.
Likely a day off: Gull scheduled three days for jury selection. Gull said at the end of Monday’s session that once the final two seats are filled on the jury Tuesday, she would hear a collection of outstanding motions filed in recent weeks. She said Wednesday would be a day off, as the court deals with logistics of a sequestered jury. Among the motions still in play:
Allen’s attorneys signaled in a Friday motion that they plan to ask Gull to reconsider evidence the judge ruled out this summer tied to a third-party defense that contends the murders were part to an old Norse pagan ritual done by a group of Odinists. Allen’s attorneys wrote in the motion that they plan to make an “offer of proof” during the trial to tell why evidence blocked by the court should be allowed.
Rozzi and Baldwin also asked the court to prevent prison guards from Westville Correctional Facility from testifying in the trial. They argued that the guards could be asked about Allen’s mental health when they “do not have sufficient life experiences that would permit making a judgment.” During previous testimony in pretrial hearings prison guards were among those who heard Allen make alleged confessions.
Also waiting for a ruling is a defense request to have jurors tour the Monon High Bridge, the place near Deer Creek where the girls were found and other key sites in the case. McLeland has objected to that. Gull issued an order in late September that she would hold a hearing on the motion after this week’s jury selection.
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And thanks to the Purdue Presidential Lecture Series, presenting Nobel laureate and University of Chicago professor Lars Peter Hansen in a conversation with Purdue President Mung Chiang at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, in the Purdue Memorial Union’s North Ballroom. Get free tickets at purdue.edu/president/lecture-series/.
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