A murder trial begins in a small Indiana town in the killings of two teenage girls

DELPHI, Ind. — (AP) — Jurors heard opening statements Friday in the trial of a man accused of killing two teen girls in a small Indiana community, horrific deaths that went unsolved for five years before investigators arrested a pharmacy employee who lived in the same town.

Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors they would see photos of the crime scene: a rugged, wooded area near the Monon High Bridge Trail in Carroll County. He said 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German had their throats cut.

Richard Allen, 52, who lived and worked in Delphi, population 3,000, is charged with two counts of murder as well as two additional murder counts while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping. If convicted, he could face up to 130 years in prison.

McLeland said incriminating statements by Allen will be part of the evidence against him.

Jurors were picked this week in Fort Wayne, nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) away, and brought to Carroll County. They’ll be sequestered for what could be a monthlong trial, banned from watching the news and allowed only limited use of their phones to call relatives while monitored by bailiffs.

During his turn, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin told the jury there's plenty of reasonable doubt about the case against Allen. He raised questions about hair evidence and said he believes the girls may have gotten into a vehicle at one point.

The case has drawn outsized attention from true-crime enthusiasts. It has seen repeated delays, some surrounding a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of Allen's public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court. It's also the subject of a gag order.

News media are barred by Judge Fran Gull from reporting directly from the courtroom with electronic devices.

The teens, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on Feb. 14, 2017. They went missing a day earlier while hiking that trail just outside their hometown. Within days, police released files found on Libby's cellphone that they believed captured the killer's image and voice — two grainy photos and audio of a man saying "down the hill."

Investigators also released one sketch of a suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019. And they released a brief video showing a suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge, known as the Monon High Bridge. After more years passed without a suspect identified, investigators said they went back and reviewed “prior tips."

Investigators found that Allen had been interviewed in 2017. He told an officer he had been walking on the trail the day Abby and Libby went missing and had seen three “females” at a bridge called the Freedom Bridge but did not speak to them, according to an affidavit.

Allen told the officer that as he walked from that bridge to the Monon High Bridge he did not see anyone but was distracted, “watching a stock ticker on his phone as he walked."

Police interviewed Allen again on Oct. 13, 2022, when he said he had seen three “juvenile girls” during his walk in 2017. Investigators searched Allen’s home and seized a .40-caliber pistol. Prosecutors said testing determined that an unspent bullet found between Abby and Libby’s bodies “had been cycled through” Allen’s gun.

According to the affidavit, Allen said he’d never been to the scene and “had no explanation as to why a round cycled through his firearm would be at that location.”

The judge has ruled that prosecutors can present evidence of dozens of statements made by Allen to correctional officers, inmates, law enforcement and relatives. That evidence includes a recording of a telephone call between Allen and his wife in which, prosecutors say, he confesses to the killings.

Allen's defense attorneys have sought to argue that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group known as the Odinists.

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