Update: Richard Allen gets 130 years, appeal looms in Delphi murders
Judge: Abby Williams’ and Libby German’s ‘families will deal with your carnage forever.’ Families ask Allen at sentencing: ‘How?’ Allen stays silent, for now.
Richard Allen left Carroll Circuit Court Friday morning, a gray sweatshirt over orange jail scrubs, staring straight ahead, having offered little comment during a sentencing hearing where he was given 130 years in prison – the maximum allowed – for the 2017 murders of Delphi eighth-graders Abby Williams and Libby German.
During a hearing that lasted just over an hour, members of Abby and Libby’s families looked Allen straight on, pressing him to, at some point if not that morning in the courtroom, explain how and explain why.
“Please, put me on your visitor’s list,” Carrie Timmons, Libby German’s mother, said to Allen in the courtroom. “I’ll listen.”
Judge Fran Gull, an Allen County Superior Court judge assigned to the Carroll County case, told Allen Friday morning that the crimes ranked among the most hideous she’s overseen in 27 years on the bench.
“You sit here and roll your eyes at me as you’ve rolled your eyes at me the entire trial,” Gull told Allen. “These families will deal with your carnage forever.”
Gull could have given Allen between 45 years and 130 years in prison, based on his Nov. 11 conviction after a trial that included more than three weeks of testimony and jury deliberations.
Allen offered little reaction to the sentence. He had declined to make a statement during the hearing, only responding to Gull when she asked whether he’d read and understood presentencing reports.
The 72-seat courtroom was full. But Allen’s family did not attend the sentencing hearing, as they had during the trial.
Allen’s attorneys offered little commentary during the hearing, either, even as they were personally thrashed in court for alleged ethical tactics by an Indiana State Police detective, Carroll County prosecutor and family members offering victim impact statements.
A day earlier, Allen’s attorneys – Brad Rozzi, Andrew Baldwin and Jennifer Auger – filed documents with the court that Allen maintained his innocence and that the wrong person was prosecuted for the murders. The defense team signaled that they’d advised Allen to offer little during the sentencing and save anything for a second trial, saying that he didn’t have much to gain when even the lightest sentence would have him in prison well into his 80s.
Allen requested a public defender for an appeal. Gull said that request would be filed with the state public defender.
Moments earlier, Mike Patty, Libby’s grandpa, anticipated that move.
“Let the girls just rest in peace,” Patty said.
Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were found dead, with slashed necks, in the woods near Delphi’s Monon High Bridge Trail on Feb. 14, 2017, a day after they’d been dropped off to spend an afternoon hiking to the Monon High Bridge.
Allen, a 52-year-old former pharmacy tech in Delphi, was arrested and charged for the murders in October 2022. That was 5½ years after the murders, tied to the scene by his self-reported information to investigators in the days after the murders in 2017 that he’d been on the Monon High Bridge Trail the day they went missing. Investigators also pointed to an unspent Winchester .40-caliber Smith and Wesson cartridge found near the girls’ bodies – one an Indiana State Police lab determined had been chambered and then ejected from a Sig Sauer P226 handgun Allen owned and that investigators found at his home.
The case presented by Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland centered on the bullet, video footage from Libby’s phone of a man who came to be known as “Bridge Guy” and more than 60 self-incriminating statements Allen made in phone calls to his wife, Kathy, and mother, Janis, and others documented by prison staff and inmates.
Rozzi, Baldwin and Auger attempted to cast doubt on the unspent round, calling it the state’s “magic bullet.” They also presented testimony that Allen had been in a psychotic state by a combination of prior mental health issues and the solitary conditions and 24/7 monitoring at Westville Correctional Facility, where he’d been sent under a safekeeping order when local officials argued conditions in the high-profile murder case weren’t secure enough for Allen in Carroll County Jail.
“While I don't think this verdict and this conviction will ever bring peace to the family,” McLeland said after the sentencing, “I hope that they can take this sigh of relief with me to say that this part of the trial is over. That we got the conviction. That we got the sentence that brings justice for Abby and Libby.”
During the hearing, family members who had been under a gag order for the past two years tried to capture what it had been like since the girls were found in the woods.
Diane Erskin, Abby’s grandmother, described her granddaughter as eager to help, good with little children. She said Abby was shy, not brave or bold, especially when it came to the dark and to strangers. Diane Erskin said she couldn’t shake the thoughts about her being terrified in those final minutes. She noted Abby’s words on the “Bridge Guy” video shot by Libby on the far end of the Monon High Bridge: “Don’t leave me up here.” She said she thought of Abby’s words as she sat through the trial, as brutal crime scene and autopsy photos were shared as evidence for the jury – images she said that would have humiliated a girl who blushed easily. Diane Erskin said she could have walked out of the courtroom at sight of “graphically horrific” images of her autopsy, but stayed because Abby had pleaded near the end not to leave her.
“This is not a day of celebration,” Diane Erskin said, saying there would be no high five or champagne corks popping later. “This is a day of sadness.”
Becky Patty, Libby’s grandmother, told about going to the CVS in Delphi, where Allen worked, to get photos of the girls processed.
“He stood there watching the family members as they struggled to keep their composure while dealing with insurmountable grief and preparing for the unthinkable laying ahead, not blinking an eye, with no remorse,” Becky Patty said. “I wonder what he was thinking?”
Becky Patty also took aim at defense attorneys, particularly for their part in a leak of crime scene photos that continue to make the rounds on the internet and social media. She called that damage generational and would be something that would continue to follow the girls. (Gull took note of the generational comment, saying she hadn’t considered that point when contemplating the sentence.)
“Something I’ll never understand is how,” Eric Erskin, Abby’s grandfather, said to Allen. “How were you able to go through your daily routine? How?”
Josh Lank, Libby’s cousin, said the murders had made his and his family’s lives “a living hell.” He said it was Allen’s turn, even rooting for prison to take its toll.
“He is a dead man walking,” Lank said.
After the hearing, Mike Patty said: “I really wanted to take the time to send out my appreciation that justice has been served for the girls.”
Lt. Jerry Holeman, the Indiana State Police lead detective in the Delphi murders, took a few jabs at Allen and the defense team from the stand, after being called as the lone witness Friday. Holeman characterized Allen as someone who laid in wait for the girls, forcing them off the Monon High Bridge with the intent to rape them, getting scared when a van drove by and killing them before walking away, showing no remorse.
“He treated them like animals,” Holeman said. “Then he left them there to go live his life.”
Holeman accused Allen’s attorneys of “unethical” tactics that stirred up conspiracy theories and threats for those in law enforcement and the prosecution.
In court, Rozzi said he understood that the hearing was to allow victims to have their day, but he requested that Gull disregard the comments about the defense attorneys as aggravators as she considered Allen’s sentence.
After the hearing, Auger quietly confronted McLeland as she gathered her coat and paperwork. Asked about it later, McLeland declined to reveal the conversation. Auger, who glared at McLeland before leaving the courtroom, did not immediately respond for comment.
Auger told The Associated Press that the defense plans to give a more detailed statement later, "but today is not the day for that."
"Thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims,” Auger told The AP. “What they went through was unimaginable.”
Allen has 30 days to file an appeal.
McLeland said that “once he files that notice, we’ll deal with it accordingly.”
“I feel confident in the verdict (and) in the sentence,” McLeland said. “But again, I’m not the Court of Appeals, so they’ll have to make that decision if it comes to them.”
For more on the verdict and on Allen’s plans to appeal:
AFTER THE GAG ORDER LIFTED
At the end of Friday’s hearing, Gull lifted a gag order on the families, investigators and others tied to the case. A press conference held by the Indiana State Police at the Wabash and Erie Canal Interpretive Center, several blocks from the Carroll County Courthouse, became a venue for thanks, lingering questions and some venting.
Here’s the full press conference:
Here are a few of the highlights:
From Mike Patty: Libby German’s grandpa thanks police, prosecutors, jurors and the community.
“This community has embraced our families from day one and continues to lift us up and support us,” Patty said. “For that, I’ll always be grateful. I want to thank the investigative team and the prosecution. Thank you for staying steadfast and continuing to work toward this. It's been almost eight years coming. If I live to make 80, almost 10% of my life has been spent working on this.”
From Prosecutor Nick McLeland: McLeland thanked investigators, who he said “were attacked by members of the internet for their integrity.”
“They were called corrupt, they were called evil, and they were called liars,” McLeland said. “They weathered that storm with professionalism and did what they could to be a shield for the families.”
McLeland called for media and others not to publish or share crime scene photos floating in emails and social media, saying “all it does is revictimize the families and hurt the reputation of Abby and Libby. (During the sentencing hearing, McLeland moved to seal the crime scene photos and Allen’s mental health records. Rozzi said he was inclined to agree, but asked Gull for seven days to offer a response.)
McLeland was asked whether he thought others, beyond Allen, were involved in the crime, given that at the announcement of Allen’s arrest he said that was a possibility.
“At this point, we don't believe any other actors are involved,” McLeland said. “We don't have any evidence to support that. If evidence comes out in the future to support that, we'll obviously investigate that. We're not going to say, ‘Hey, no, we got the conviction. We're not listening to what you have to say.’ But at this point, we have no other evidence showing that any other actors are involved. If Richard Allen himself, the defendant, wants to come forward and give us more information, we'll gladly accept that.”
Was he willing to concede that there were some holes in the case, some things that cannot be explained in the prosecution of Allen?
“I’m not going to concede that, no,” McLeland said.
From Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter: Carter was defensive, noting that “2,866 days ago, this entire thing began.” He pushed back on criticism and allegations of infighting among police agencies, missteps during the investigation and alleged cover-ups.
“Over the course of these last many years now, several of us – me, included – have been mocked and ostracized for our emotion, for our inability to answer questions that you might ask, and the thought that we're something other than human beings,” Carter said. “I'm not going to apologize for that, I often say, I wish people could see what goes on behind the scene.”
Carter also came to the defense of Jerry Holeman, an ISP detective in the case who has been called out in some circles for interrogation techniques that included lying to Allen before his arrest.
“I'll crawl across shards of hot glass for Jerry Holeman,” Carter said. “Jerry Holeman is not a liar. Jerry Holeman gave the last eight years of his life to something much greater than himself. …
“How about we start to heal now?” Carter said. “How about we hit that reset button? … Let's heal, tone down the rhetoric, stop all the politics and all the nonsense and all the conspiracy theories, and understand that we all tried the best we could. That should be the message.”
From Sheriff Tony Liggett: Liggett was a Carroll County detective working the case before he was elected sheriff in November 2022, weeks after Allen’s arrest.
“I keep hearing the word closure – people are coming up to me saying, ‘I bet that you’re glad that there’s finally closure,’” Liggett said. “There will never be any closure in this case. The Germans and the Williams families lost their daughters, their granddaughters, their siblings. Justice – a form of justice – was served. But it does not bring Abby or Libby back.”
Liggett called Allen a “lowlife coward” who took innocent lives, saying: “My heart is, and always has been, broken for these families. I want them to know that we stand with them, and I want to apologize that it took eight years.”
Liggett said he believed “the verdict and the sentencing will help ease some of that sense of security for the people of Carroll County.” He said he borrowed a line Becky Patty used in daily social media posts during the investigation.
“The goal was actually to be able to say the words, and they ring true,” Liggett said. “There is zero doubt that justice has been served, and ‘today is the day.’”
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Excellent coverage, Dave.