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    • Delphi Murders Updates as Richard Allen Trial Continues November 6, 2024
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    Delphi Murders Updates as Richard Allen Trial Continues November 6, 2024

    Umito Posted on

    Richard Allen’s defense team ended its arguments in a surprise move moments after hearings began Wednesday at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi.

    Hours later, around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, prosecutors finished questioning their final rebuttal witness and court was adjourned for the day so both sides could prepare their closing arguments. Starting at 9 a.m. Thursday, attorneys for the state, and then Allen, will spend hours gathering all of the evidence they presented before jurors begin deliberations to reach a verdict.

    Allen, 52, is accused of murdering two teenagers who went missing on February 13, 2017 and were found dead the next day. He was arrested in 2022 and faces two counts of murder and two counts of murder during kidnapping in connection with the deaths of Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German.

    Journalists from Indianapolis Star and the Lafayette Journal & Courier will cover the case as it moves through the court system.

    November 5, 2024: Jurors in Delphi murder trial remain seated on Election Day.

    This story will be updated throughout the day.

    During his cross-examination of the State of Indiana’s final rebuttal witness, defense attorney Bradley Rozzi played part of a video showing Allen motionless, strapped to a wheelchair for a medical exam .

    The video, which Rozzi had previously hidden from the courtroom audience to protect Allen’s dignity, was taken on June 20, 2023, a month after Dr. John Martin of the Westville Correctional Facility testified that ‘Allen had apparently come out of psychosis. Martin said that during a meeting earlier in the day, Allen was communicative and spontaneously told Martin he wanted to apologize to Abby and Libby’s families.

    But even Martin doubted that Allen, as shown in the 10:52 video he had not previously watched, had left a state of psychosis.

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    Witnesses in Rebuttal Trial of Richard Allen in Delphi Murders Speak Out

    Richard Allen’s defense team completed its case Wednesday.

    Wearing a white T-shirt and bright orange pants, the frail-looking Allen is strapped to a wheelchair as guards and doctors surround him in an examination room. As doctors take his blood pressure and scan him with a stethoscope, Allen stares ahead and barely moves. Alarmingly, Allen had lost 50 pounds in prison, Martin testified.

    In the courtroom, Allen couldn’t bear to look at this past version of himself. He put his hands over his eyes and craned his head to look over his right shoulder, at his family seated in the first row of seats. His wife, sister and mother all kept their heads down to avoid watching the video while quietly crying. Allen himself began to shake and his eyes filled with tears. Allen’s lawyer, Andrew Baldwin, squeezed his client’s bicep and then threw an arm over his chair.

    “Does this video cause you to question your diagnosis that Mr. Allen was no longer psychotic on June 20, 2023?” Rozzi asked Martin.

    “Yes,” Martin said.

    Martin, however, told prosecutor Stacey Diener that the video did not cause him to doubt his recollection of his conversation with Allen that day.

    In a transcript of Martin’s conversation with Allen on June 20, the doctor wrote that several self-inflicted bruises appeared on Allen’s face. He wrote that Allen “pretends to be suicidal” but that “in general he is much better and does not appear to be psychotic.”

    During the session, Allen chose to wear only a T-shirt and boxers despite his prison uniform. Allen’s eye contact was weak and his voice soft, but he “was coherent and spoke without loose associations or flights of ideas,” Martin wrote. “It was oriented to the person, the place, the time of day and the situation.” He was getting enough sleep and eating most of his meals.

    But Allen still spoke little. However, he said he was worried about his wife and “wanted to apologize to the families of his victims,” according to Martin.

    Martin argued that Allen entered prison with baseline conditions of depression and anxiety. By May 2023, he believed Allen had recovered from the onset of psychosis in April with antipsychotic medication and returned to his baseline level of depression. He gave Allen three monthly doses in April, May and June to ensure he didn’t relapse.

    “I continued to observe him,” Martin said, “and for seven weeks there was no evidence of psychosis.”

    In response to a question from the jury, Martin said it was possible to go in and out of psychosis in the same day. Jurors also asked Martin whether the video led him to believe Allen may have faked his condition, as suggested in earlier testimony from Dr. Monica Wala, the therapist Allen met in prison.

    “No,” Martin replied, “I don’t think so.”

    Prosecutors sought to puncture the defense’s position that Allen suffered from long periods of psychosis when he confessed to killing Abby and Libby.

    Their rebuttal focused on two witnesses whose testimony sought to undermine the dire incarceration conditions that defense attorneys described to jurors and establish that Allen’s psychosis was inconsistent.

    Brian HarshmanThe Indiana State Police chief who listened to hundreds of Allen’s calls from prison said Allen had been in a single cell for most of the past two years since his arrest. HAS Westville Correctional Facilityhe had the right to leisure time and could communicate with his neighbors from his cell. The conditions of his incarceration were similar to Wabash Valley Correctional Facilitywhere he was transferred after about a year to Westville.

    At the Cass County Jail, where he is being held while on trial, he has a small day room and a table.

    Dr. John Martin, a psychiatrist in Westville, was also called in to establish that although Allen showed signs of psychosis, the symptoms eventually subsided after he was given antipsychotic medication. Allen also confessed to the crimes during periods of apparent sanity.

    Martin testified that he first saw signs of psychosis on April 13, 2023, when Allen was found lying naked in his cell with feces smeared over his body. Allen was then injected with antipsychotic medication.

    On April 25, 2023, Martin said he saw improvements in Allen’s mental state. On May 2, 2023, there were no signs of psychosis, Martin testified. Psychotic symptoms reappeared on May 8 and 9, 2023, but disappeared shortly afterward. When he met with Allen on May 23, 2023, and again a week later, he saw no signs of psychosis, Martin testified.

    On June 20, 2023, Martin said he decided to stop giving Allen antipsychotic medication after meeting with him again and finding no evidence of psychosis.

    “That day, he said to me,” Martin testified, “‘I would like to apologize to the families of Abby and Libby.'”

    Seven minutes after the start of proceedings Wednesday morning, Richard Allen’s defense ended its arguments.

    The surprising turn of events comes less than a week after the defense began calling its witnesses, brought to their knees somewhat by Special Judge Frances Gull’s refusal to allow them to present their alternative theory that the girls were killed by the Odinists during a sacrificial ritual.

    Proceedings will now move to jury instructions when Allen County’s 12-person panel determines a verdict.

    At 9:15 a.m., the jury was excused as the state and defense discussed instructions for the group. A point of contention was whether Allen would testify, as well as his “prior inconsistent statements.” Gull said his instructions to the jury included that Allen would not testify.

    After a half-hour of deliberation outside the courtroom, prosecutors returned and said they had no problem with the instructions.

    Brad Rozzi, one of Allen’s attorneys, asked until the end of the day to present a proposal on how the jury should judge Allen’s “incriminating statements.” Gull gave them until the end of the business day.

    Closing arguments will last between two and two and a half hours.

    At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, a new set of rules was announced.

    People will no longer be allowed to queue to sit in the courtroom before 7 a.m. The case has attracted international attention from the media and true crime fanatics, including YouTube and podcast personalities. Many waited in line or had people line up for them as early as midnight in hopes of getting a spot.

    Media were moved to the back of the courtroom after being accused of speaking during the proceedings. The courtroom was warned that the speakers would be ejected.

    Richard Allen’s family is now sitting where the media used to be, in the front row of the courtroom, prompting Becky Patty, Libby German’s grandmother, to say “that’s bullshit.” .

    Libby’s family remains seated in the second row.

    The number of places available to the public has also decreased, from 24 to 18.

    Umito
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