The Delphi Murders: Richard Allen on Trial: Day Eighteen: Closing Arguments

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of the brutal murder of two girls as well as issues around mental health, including suicide.

[00:00:08] David Morgan Today was an especially momentous day in the trial of Richard Allen for the murders of Libby German and Abigail Williams in Delphi, Indiana, because it was the last day for the lawyers.

[00:00:21] David Morgan Basically, it was the day they gave their final arguments to the jurors and now is going to be up to the jurors to decide what happens next.

[00:00:31] And so we are going to tell you all about it today.

[00:00:35] Danielle Pletka Absolutely.

[00:00:36] My name is Anya Kane.

[00:00:37] I'm a journalist.

[00:00:39] Kevin Greenlee And I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[00:00:40] I'm an attorney.

[00:00:41] Danielle Pletka And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:00:43] Kevin Greenlee We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:00:50] Danielle Pletka And this is The Delphi Murders.

[00:00:53] Richard Allen on trial, day 18, closing arguments.

[00:01:44] First of all, some housekeeping.

[00:01:46] David Morgan Some housekeeping.

[00:01:47] David Morgan We're always doing housekeeping.

[00:01:48] So we want to thank our wonderful line sitters for today, Joe and Kay.

[00:01:53] David Morgan Both of whom, correct me if I'm mistaken, but both of those fine, fine individuals, those high class, sophisticated individuals, Kay and Joe, both of them are now members,

[00:02:06] David Morgan I think Kay's done more than twice, right?

[00:02:08] Kevin Greenlee So is Kay in the Thrice Club?

[00:02:11] David Morgan Thrice.

[00:02:12] David Morgan She's done it many times and we very much appreciate her.

[00:02:15] And we also welcome Joe to the Two Timers Club.

[00:02:17] Absolutely.

[00:02:18] David Morgan Why are you looking at me?

[00:02:21] David Morgan Yeah, I don't know what I'm saying.

[00:02:23] It's been a long month for all of us.

[00:02:26] David Morgan So, but it was a long night for them.

[00:02:29] David Morgan They braved, you know, the cold and all sorts of manners of things to do this for us.

[00:02:34] And we just want to really express our appreciation.

[00:02:35] Thank you to everyone who lines sat for us.

[00:02:38] And thank you for everyone who just volunteered.

[00:02:40] I mean, it really means a lot.

[00:02:41] And we just want you to know we appreciate all of you.

[00:02:44] David Morgan I think someone could potentially do a very interesting podcast.

[00:02:50] It's called Tales from the Line because so many odd and peculiar things happen there.

[00:02:56] David Morgan And nice things.

[00:02:57] There's a beautiful dog named Red there.

[00:02:59] David Morgan I loved Red.

[00:03:01] David Morgan Red was beloved and there was just a lot of there's bad stuff, good stuff, weird stuff, everything in between.

[00:03:09] And we just want everyone again for everyone who did it, everyone who volunteered.

[00:03:14] A lot of very nice people offered us like lodging for free or discounted rates, things like that.

[00:03:19] Just so many people are so kind.

[00:03:21] And we just want to say thank you to all of you because it meant a lot.

[00:03:24] David Morgan And we're so far behind on email.

[00:03:27] We're going to try to catch up after all of this is over.

[00:03:30] But we apologize for that.

[00:03:31] And we remain deeply grateful for all of you.

[00:03:34] And we love getting positive emails.

[00:03:36] David Morgan What a weird thing to say.

[00:03:38] David Morgan I mean, it's true.

[00:03:41] David Morgan Kevin Greenlee I love getting positive emails.

[00:03:44] David Morgan We got an email this morning.

[00:03:46] The subject line was, I love Anya Kane.

[00:03:48] You were as happy as a clam.

[00:03:49] David Morgan Well, it was very nice.

[00:03:50] David Morgan Yeah.

[00:03:51] David Morgan But, you know, I'm okay.

[00:03:54] Well, thank you to that person.

[00:03:57] And it's very nice.

[00:03:59] But anyways, we can move along now into the day.

[00:04:04] David Morgan Unless you want to talk more about that email.

[00:04:06] David Morgan Let's talk more about why I'm great.

[00:04:07] No, I'm just kidding.

[00:04:08] David Morgan So as we said, today was closing arguments for the defense and prosecution in the Richard Allen case.

[00:04:17] Let's talk a little bit about process.

[00:04:19] David Morgan Before the arguments began, Judge Gould read some instructions to the jury that specifically pertained to the details of this case.

[00:04:28] And after closing arguments ended, she read more instructions that were more general.

[00:04:35] One thing people often ask me about these jury instructions.

[00:04:40] They're always read by the judge and they always sound like in a monotone.

[00:04:46] The judge always says them in a monotone.

[00:04:49] And people ask me, why do they do that?

[00:04:52] Are they just trying to make it extra, extra dull?

[00:04:56] And no, they're not.

[00:04:58] David Morgan As I think we all know, a lot of meaning, whether intentional or otherwise, can be put into tone.

[00:05:06] And so, for instance, if Anya said to me, oh, you made a lovely meal last night.

[00:05:12] It was the best thing I've ever had.

[00:05:14] That's really sweet and wonderful.

[00:05:16] But if she said, oh, Kevin, you made a lovely meal last night.

[00:05:20] It was the best thing I ever had.

[00:05:21] It takes on a different meaning.

[00:05:24] Not that she would ever speak to me like that, of course.

[00:05:26] Not at all.

[00:05:27] I'm very sweet.

[00:05:28] So the judges in these instances, they want to make sure that they are reading the instructions devoid of all tone so that the jurors aren't thinking, oh, the judge is emphasizing this or the judge's voice seems to go up there.

[00:05:44] The judge must think that's extra important.

[00:05:46] The judge must think this part isn't as important.

[00:05:49] So that's why they have it in this kind of monotone.

[00:05:52] It is, frankly, kind of dull to listen to, but there is that reason for it.

[00:05:57] It makes sense.

[00:05:58] And I appreciate you explaining that because, yeah, it's like you don't you don't want to, especially when you're dealing with people who are going to be deciding things and maybe you're not, you know, they're not going to be attorneys who are going to be on the jury.

[00:06:12] So you don't want to be setting anything up for failure.

[00:06:15] Did you find anything about the specific instructions interesting to you as a layperson?

[00:06:22] Not even a little bit.

[00:06:23] It was interesting.

[00:06:24] Some of the reporters were kind of pouring over them and it just all sounded very boilerplate to me.

[00:06:29] We can talk about some of it.

[00:06:30] But I will say before we get into that, do you mind if I note just because people are always asking who's in the gallery?

[00:06:38] Okay.

[00:06:40] So today was the second time we actually saw Brittany Zapanta, who is Richard Allen's daughter there.

[00:06:44] So she was there with her aunt Jamie Jones, his half sister, Marvin Allen, his stepfather, Janice Allen, his mother, and of course, Kathy Allen, his wife.

[00:06:56] So the Allens were very much represented here today, including the daughter, Brittany.

[00:07:02] So this is the second time we've seen her in court.

[00:07:04] The first time was when she testified.

[00:07:07] I just wanted to note that.

[00:07:10] And then, yeah, the jury instructions were pretty boring.

[00:07:17] I mean, I'm happy to skip over it.

[00:07:19] I mean, let's at least give an attempt here.

[00:07:23] Talked about the jury is the judge on the law and facts.

[00:07:28] They're going to be determining the facts.

[00:07:31] And.

[00:07:33] Yeah.

[00:07:34] And then basically, here's what Richard Allen is charged with.

[00:07:36] You have to believe that he did these things.

[00:07:38] And they kind of get into a definition.

[00:07:40] Maybe we'll talk about this a little bit more at the end, but a definition of what is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

[00:07:46] What does that mean?

[00:07:47] We all heard the phrase.

[00:07:48] We all know the phrase.

[00:07:49] But what does that actually mean when you're determining what is reasonable doubt versus all doubt?

[00:07:56] So we'll talk about that later, I think.

[00:07:58] Okay.

[00:08:00] So then we get to Nicholas McClellan's final closing argument.

[00:08:04] Wasn't it wasn't his final.

[00:08:06] Well, no, it's his closing argument.

[00:08:07] Before we get into that, I think obviously really the ultimate scorecard of who gives a good closing and a bad closing is really rendered by the jury, depending on how they vote.

[00:08:22] But with that said, one way in my mind to judge whether a closing argument is really good and strong or is not is what it covers.

[00:08:32] I like it when a closing argument actually addresses in some detail the facts of the crime that is the subject of the trial, because it seems to me that if if attorneys choose not to highlight the actual facts of the crime that is the subject of the trial, it must be because they're making a decision.

[00:08:55] Oh, if we talk about that, that's not good for us.

[00:08:57] And that makes me think, well, maybe their case is weak and it makes me less interested in what they have to say, frankly.

[00:09:05] How do you feel about random pictures of snakes?

[00:09:10] I'm foreshadowing here.

[00:09:12] Anya's foreshadowing about an unfortunate turn that was taken near the end of Rosie's clothing statement.

[00:09:19] So with that said, let's talk.

[00:09:21] Nick McClellan got up about 917 a.m. this morning and he began speaking.

[00:09:26] He focused squarely on February 13th, 2017.

[00:09:31] He said that that was a day this community would never forget.

[00:09:34] That was a day Libby and Abby went for a walk and never returned.

[00:09:40] And he hearkened back to the early days of the trial where he said, we said in our opening statement that we would give you evidence to convict Richard Allen.

[00:09:49] And we have.

[00:09:50] Yes. And he talked about, you know, his thesis in the mini opening onward has been the cases about the bullet bridge guy and the brutal murder of two girls.

[00:10:03] So this is a situation where.

[00:10:07] He kept the focus on that topic.

[00:10:10] He talked about how on the morning of February 13th, 2017, Becky Patty is at home with Libby German and Abigail Williams, who had spent the night.

[00:10:18] The girls were playing with a new puppy and they got the idea to go out to the trails.

[00:10:25] And the last thing Liberty German said to her grandmother was, grandma, it will be OK.

[00:10:31] And I was impressed.

[00:10:32] One thing to note with this is McClellan really does know how and, you know, gets in the emotional moments along with the facts.

[00:10:40] He's been consistently able to do that.

[00:10:43] It's not just dry facts, but it's also not just emotionalism.

[00:10:45] It's not just emotionalism and sort of like it like because, again, while that's certainly powerful, that's that shouldn't be what carries the day.

[00:10:53] It should be the facts.

[00:10:54] And I feel like he's kind of he's been able to kind of braid them together in a way that's been, I think, compelling.

[00:11:00] So he talked about Kelsey driving Abby and Libby to the trails.

[00:11:05] He indicates that she dropped them off at about 148 p.m.

[00:11:10] And we have a pretty good idea of the time for several reasons, one of which is that Libby was posting onto Snapchat some pictures of her and Abby in the vehicle.

[00:11:22] And he actually showed one of those pictures on the big TV screen they had.

[00:11:26] I thought that was effective.

[00:11:28] I think this closing argument had a lot of effective use of images.

[00:11:32] There was essentially a slideshow to accompany with it.

[00:11:35] Frankly, when I saw that they were doing stuff with that big TV that's had so many problems, I was a little bit like, oh, oh.

[00:11:42] But in this case, it went relatively smoothly and they were allowed to essentially illustrate some of the things he was talking about.

[00:11:49] So you're seeing this image of Libby kind of looking goofy.

[00:11:52] Abby's in the back seat.

[00:11:54] Like, it's just like normal kids having a good time.

[00:11:59] But as we all know, things didn't stay normal for long.

[00:12:02] And he started talking about how.

[00:12:04] Also, I will say this.

[00:12:05] You said we know how when they got out.

[00:12:07] Also, Liberty German unplugged her phone.

[00:12:09] Right.

[00:12:09] On the data at 148 p.m.

[00:12:11] And things didn't seem normal.

[00:12:13] Things were not normal for long because at 3.30, he talked about how Liberty German's father, Derek, called his mother, Becky Paddy, and indicated he could not find the girls.

[00:12:23] And at some point after 5 p.m.

[00:12:26] On the night of February 13th, the family contacted law enforcement to report that the girls had gone missing.

[00:12:33] One of the first members of law enforcement to take that call actually went under the Monon High Bridge.

[00:12:41] And he went down this access road that we've heard so much about that leads to the property belonging to Brad Weber.

[00:12:49] This is a gentleman who testified very early in the case.

[00:12:52] And this deputy interacted with Brad Weber.

[00:12:56] Brad Weber seemed fine and normal to him.

[00:12:58] He said, Brad Weber, there's some girls missing.

[00:13:01] Do we have permission to search your property?

[00:13:03] And Weber consented readily.

[00:13:07] Yes.

[00:13:09] And they talked about other law enforcement joined in.

[00:13:13] The search went on until 2 a.m.

[00:13:16] As McClellan put it, quote, no one is looking for two dead bodies, end quote.

[00:13:21] He talked about how no one suspected malfeasance.

[00:13:24] It's basically what everyone thought was either there's been some sort of very tragic accident or maybe more likely the girls are alive and lost and scared.

[00:13:35] You know, those were the two competing theories.

[00:13:38] And what McClellan said about like in terms of thinking that this might be some horrific double murder is, quote, that doesn't happen around here.

[00:13:46] Small communities, those types of things don't happen.

[00:13:51] The search, as Anya mentioned, ended around 2 a.m.

[00:13:55] It resumed the next day at about 7 a.m.

[00:13:58] And McClellan reminded us that it was Pat Brown who found the bodies the next day around noon.

[00:14:04] And also in that time, some clothing belonging to Libby and Abby was discovered in the creek.

[00:14:11] And at this point, as Anya mentioned, there was a very effective slideshow.

[00:14:16] And so there were images of the clothes in the creek, I imagine, taken soon after it was found.

[00:14:22] Absolutely.

[00:14:23] Yeah.

[00:14:23] And again, again, I felt like compelling use of images here.

[00:14:26] And what I feel like McClellan was doing at this point is like it's just, you know, the timeline is important and taking you through the entire story is important.

[00:14:35] That's sort of what the state's case has been.

[00:14:37] And he's kind of linking it all together.

[00:14:39] So the jury is leaving with that in mind in a way.

[00:14:44] So he talks about how a deputy in daylight walks right past where the bodies were and didn't see them because they were that well hidden.

[00:14:54] Yeah.

[00:14:55] Giancola.

[00:14:55] And we've also heard other people describe that where they were located was in a section of land that I think was similar to a bull.

[00:15:04] Yeah, bull, a bit of a depression.

[00:15:05] So it wasn't like, you know, you could essentially be right near them and be missing them until you sort of step to the side and then maybe you get at a better angle.

[00:15:17] So at this point, McClellan warns us that we're going to show you what they saw.

[00:15:25] And he showed on that monitor some pictures, some images of the bodies of Abby and Libby.

[00:15:34] And again, these are horrible pictures to see.

[00:15:38] Yeah, horrifying.

[00:15:40] He talks about how some of the crime scene technicians came in and they documented everything.

[00:15:46] We see a picture of the phone when it was discovered.

[00:15:50] And McClellan mentions that it had leaves and water and dirt on it.

[00:15:56] He also shows the gallery and more importantly, the jury, a picture of the bullet as it was seen when it was discovered.

[00:16:06] I think that was the first time I'd actually seen a picture of the bullet as it was of the crime scene.

[00:16:11] Had you seen that before?

[00:16:12] I had not because I think we were, some of the days we've been sitting in an angle that's not been conducive to that.

[00:16:19] But yeah, we also reviewed again the video that was on that phone.

[00:16:24] You said, yeah, we took the phone and we took the video off and they played the video.

[00:16:28] And the first thing they did was they showed the video, the original version of the video.

[00:16:33] And I think the more times they've seen it, more times it's been shown, I think it becomes easier and easier to see some of these details in it, at least for me.

[00:16:43] Is that your experience?

[00:16:43] That's been my experience.

[00:16:44] The first time I saw it, I was like, I don't know what that was.

[00:16:50] And it was hard to see.

[00:16:51] I don't even think I saw Bridge Guy the first time I saw it.

[00:16:53] And the more and more I see it, the more and more I hear.

[00:16:57] And I'm like noticing all the little details and I can hear how scared they are.

[00:17:01] And that makes my heart break for them.

[00:17:04] I feel like it sounds like, and I've said this to other people, like it's almost, and again, I'm speculating here, but just from being a person in the world, like there's been times where like if I'm around another woman or just another person and there's kind of a threatening male in the area, frankly.

[00:17:22] Like I'm sure many people, man and woman have been in a situation like this.

[00:17:26] Just a threatening person is in the area and you're not really sure what their deal is.

[00:17:31] You almost sometimes like kind of go into a mode of like, oh, hey, how are you?

[00:17:34] So what are we doing for lunch today?

[00:17:36] Like you're almost kind of like trying to act like everything's normal just because like you're hoping whatever this is is going to blow over and not be a big deal.

[00:17:43] Like you kind of go into that mode and the way the girls are talking, you know, Abby's asking at one point, is he behind me?

[00:17:49] And then Libby's almost saying like, oh, the trail ends here.

[00:17:52] And like, you know, like, but it's kind of like, I think they say hi to him after he says guys.

[00:17:57] It's like they're trying to like cling to some sort of normalcy because it's like they're just hoping that they're misunderstanding almost.

[00:18:03] Like that, is that what you kind of.

[00:18:06] That's what I took from it.

[00:18:07] You mentioned that you could hear the fear in their voices.

[00:18:10] McClelland also made that point.

[00:18:12] And he also said you could also see the fear on Abby's face.

[00:18:18] Yes.

[00:18:18] And you definitely could.

[00:18:20] And it is heartbreaking to see that because in some manner she understood the danger this man represented to her.

[00:18:30] And that's that's awful to think about what she must have been experiencing.

[00:18:37] Sometimes instinctively you you have a bad feeling about somebody and it feels like that was happening for both Abby and Libby here where this was not some sort of blitz attack where they were not seeing it coming.

[00:18:46] This was something where it was a buildup of dread and that just like I guess like on some level.

[00:18:51] One of the things that's been so hard about this trial is that you feel like.

[00:18:56] Like you always hoped that maybe whatever awful thing happened to them, it was over quickly.

[00:19:03] And like that's not the case.

[00:19:06] That's not the case.

[00:19:07] And I to digress a bit, I've always been interested in the Kennedy assassination.

[00:19:12] And sometimes when I watch this awful Zapruder video of that assassination, I find myself hoping, you know, maybe this time it will end differently.

[00:19:22] Maybe they won't take that turn.

[00:19:23] Maybe there'll be no bullets fired.

[00:19:25] But of course, it always ends with President Kennedy's head being blown apart.

[00:19:29] And when I watch this video, which I've now seen, I forget how many times in court, I find myself hoping that something is going to happen, that someone is going to come out and save them or there's going to be some great turn of events.

[00:19:43] But it's not.

[00:19:44] It's not.

[00:19:45] They are kidnapped and they are murdered.

[00:19:49] And McClellan makes the point that this bridge guy, he used a gun to secure them.

[00:19:54] He said, we know that for several reasons, one of which is one of the girls makes a comment about that be a gun.

[00:20:01] And also, of course, there was a .40 caliber bullet found in the crime scene.

[00:20:05] You can hear a gun racking.

[00:20:06] You can hear a gun racking.

[00:20:08] I want to ask you, we've heard people say that it says she says that be a gun.

[00:20:14] I'm not sure if that's what I think she says or if she says Abby a gun.

[00:20:19] I don't know.

[00:20:20] I don't.

[00:20:21] I could see it either way.

[00:20:23] I feel like law enforcement, when they're talking about it, have said that be a gun.

[00:20:29] But I can also see where people might say Abby a gun.

[00:20:32] Either way, a gun is definitely mentioned.

[00:20:35] I'd be curious if this is something where maybe law enforcement is like looked into like Libby if she used slang or like how her diction would normally be.

[00:20:43] And maybe they kind of determined based on that or if they've just listened to it so many times that they've come to the idea that that's what she's saying as opposed to Abby.

[00:20:51] But I'm going to say this like, you know, this is where a lot of people get hung up.

[00:20:56] How could one man kidnap two girls?

[00:21:01] Multiple kidnapping of multiple people happens.

[00:21:04] And it's certainly expedited by guns.

[00:21:08] You know, if someone is pointing a gun at you and your best friend and you're 14 and 13, I don't think this is some sort of surprising, hard to believe thing.

[00:21:16] I mean, we've one of the cases we've done extensively is the Burger Chef murders.

[00:21:22] I mean, no one exactly knows what happened to those kids, but that was an abduction of four young people who are all a bit older than Abby and Libby.

[00:21:30] And that was successfully pulled off.

[00:21:33] I mean, I think in that case there were multiple people involved.

[00:21:35] But at the same time, like there's also more kidnap victims.

[00:21:39] And when you were controlling people with a gun.

[00:21:42] Some people's reaction to that might be to run.

[00:21:44] Maybe you'd like to think that your reaction would be to run.

[00:21:47] But I ask you to like have some empathy and think about your 13, 14, your little girl in the woods with your best friend.

[00:21:55] Maybe your reaction is to try to comply because you think that that will be what saves you.

[00:22:02] That's we have different modes of dealing with fear.

[00:22:06] You have fight, flight, fawn, freeze.

[00:22:10] So there's to me, there's no like I feel like a lot of people don't seem to get that.

[00:22:16] And I don't understand it because it's like have you ever been a kid?

[00:22:18] Have you ever been like in a scary situation?

[00:22:20] Like do you really do you really are you really that confident that your first move is to throw a haymaker or to just sprint away leaving your best friend there?

[00:22:29] I don't understand.

[00:22:31] I I think that's that's just not realistic.

[00:22:36] What I'm saying is I think it's I think it's completely normal for a person to be able to gain control over multiple people using a gun.

[00:22:43] I agree.

[00:22:45] McClellan went on to talk about how law enforcement subsequently enhanced the video and not for the first time.

[00:22:52] He praised Libby German for deciding to record.

[00:22:56] He said something told her she needed to record.

[00:23:00] And then they played the enhanced version of the video, which just makes it even more striking because you can see.

[00:23:10] He's a certain distance away from Abby on the bridge.

[00:23:14] The camera moves away.

[00:23:15] And when the camera comes back, he's so much closer and he's just getting closer and closer.

[00:23:19] And just it's awful to think about.

[00:23:23] And again, McClellan mentions the fear in the voices of the girl and the fear, particularly on Abby's face.

[00:23:32] So then he started talking about some of the witnesses that he brought in.

[00:23:37] He talked about how Breanne Wilbur got on the trails around 1225,

[00:23:42] walked to the Monon High Bridge and then walked back to the Freedom Bridge.

[00:23:47] At about 126 p.m., she took a picture of a bench and then she sees a man who seems kind of creepy and a bit rude to them.

[00:23:56] And she's testified that that man was Bridge Guy.

[00:24:01] Yes.

[00:24:04] And really, Voorhees was also mentioned here as having that kind of interaction to seeing the person that she is very confident is Bridge Guy.

[00:24:12] You also talked about Betsy Blair.

[00:24:14] Betsy Blair.

[00:24:15] She came back from doing some loops, got to the Monon High Bridge, noticed a man on the first platform.

[00:24:21] Her Fitbit places her there.

[00:24:25] About 2 p.m.

[00:24:26] About 2 p.m.

[00:24:27] He's on the first platform and, quote, he seemed to be watching for someone, end quote.

[00:24:31] And then when she's heading on her way back, she passes Abby and Libby.

[00:24:35] Walking towards the Monon High Bridge.

[00:24:38] Also talked about Sarah Carball.

[00:24:42] Remind us who she is and what she saw.

[00:24:44] Close to 4 p.m., Sarah Carball, a young woman driving on 300 North, drives past, which is when I saw pictures recently, I was shocked by how narrow it looked.

[00:24:57] In my mind's eye, I suppose I was picturing a much wider road, but it is very, very narrow.

[00:25:03] And off the side of the road, she saw a man walking.

[00:25:07] The top of his, like, most of his body was covered in mud.

[00:25:13] And toward the bottom of his pants was bloody.

[00:25:16] And she said it looked like he had, quote, slaughtered a pig.

[00:25:19] And he was kind of all hunched up, not really acknowledging her.

[00:25:24] She assumed in her testimony that he had fallen down while hiking.

[00:25:30] McClellan made the point that all of these witnesses that he just referred to that we've just mentioned, all of them give slightly different descriptions of the person they saw.

[00:25:41] But all of them agree that the person they saw was Bridgeguy from the video.

[00:25:47] Do the discrepancies in these witnesses bother you?

[00:25:51] I'm curious.

[00:25:52] No.

[00:25:52] Why not?

[00:25:53] For a number of reasons, one of which is eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.

[00:26:00] And another reason is if I see someone, I'm looking out the window towards outside.

[00:26:07] And if I see somebody can feed or further from me who's trying to hide their face, I'm probably not going to be able to give you a good description of their face.

[00:26:19] But I would be able to give you a good description of what they're wearing and how they walk.

[00:26:26] And so I feel these witnesses had trouble seeing the face of this person.

[00:26:30] But they all remember his clothes and how he walks and how he moves.

[00:26:35] And then they remember that and they take their memories and they say, oh, this person I'm seeing is also the person in this video.

[00:26:42] What about you?

[00:26:43] What do you think?

[00:26:44] That is exactly how I feel.

[00:26:45] It doesn't bother me at all.

[00:26:47] I think it would be problematic if they were in court saying, pointing at Richelle and saying, that's the man I saw if they were all getting complete discrepancies.

[00:26:54] That would certainly bother me.

[00:26:56] But they're not.

[00:26:57] What they're saying is we saw Bridgeguy.

[00:27:00] We saw whoever Bridgeguy was.

[00:27:03] And Richard Allen, in this case, did the rest for the state because he was consistently putting himself in all of those situations.

[00:27:12] He claims he passed a group of girls around the same time.

[00:27:17] He says he was on the first platform of the bridge looking at fish after checking his stock ticker, even though his phone never appears on the trails that day.

[00:27:25] And, well, he doesn't match the Sarah Carbaugh thing.

[00:27:29] But I guess these other two instances, he's putting himself in the clothing of Bridgeguy in the places that Bridgeguy was.

[00:27:37] So he's the most, in some ways, the most important witness there.

[00:27:43] McClellan moved on to the fact that investigator Steve Mullen was able to go to the Hoosier Harvest store where they had a security camera that picked up some traffic.

[00:27:54] And by looking at this footage and looking at the timestamp on the traffic, that makes them able to pinpoint when certain people are arriving or leaving or what have you.

[00:28:08] And so that enabled them to see exactly when Kelsey German was there, when Betsy Blair was there, when Sarah Carball was there.

[00:28:14] And I think this is the first time I recall seeing images from this video.

[00:28:19] Is it the first time you've seen them?

[00:28:20] Yes. If they've been shown before, we haven't seen them because maybe we're at a bad angle. I don't know.

[00:28:25] What did you think about the quality of the images?

[00:28:28] I think most of the video is like the parking lot and then some kind of grass and then the road is a little bit more distant.

[00:28:35] So it's not like when they showed the original ones, it was a bit hard for me to see the cars in the background.

[00:28:41] But then they zoomed in on some of them.

[00:28:42] And I mean, it seemed one of those things where it's not going to give you a license plate, but it's certainly going to give you an approximation, like not even an approximation, a pretty clear image of the car.

[00:28:56] In my view.

[00:28:57] Right.

[00:28:58] Like, I mean, you're going to see maybe like not entirely what type of car it is, but certainly what the frame looks like.

[00:29:04] What do you think?

[00:29:05] Yeah, it actually was a little bit better than I expected.

[00:29:08] It was better than I thought it would be too.

[00:29:10] I thought it was going to be really blurry and ambiguous.

[00:29:13] It really wasn't.

[00:29:16] Yeah, I.

[00:29:17] Yeah.

[00:29:18] So I was surprised.

[00:29:20] It was much better than I expected.

[00:29:22] Yeah.

[00:29:23] And it looked like his car.

[00:29:25] In my mind.

[00:29:26] Whose car?

[00:29:27] Alan's.

[00:29:28] We haven't even gotten that.

[00:29:29] OK, but OK, fine.

[00:29:30] But well, OK.

[00:29:31] I was I was surprised by how clear it was.

[00:29:34] But it was, you know, it's also the same thing.

[00:29:40] Because that would require looking at a license plate, in my view.

[00:29:43] So then McClellan started talking about how they did an extraction on Libby's phone.

[00:29:49] It reveals, as Anya mentioned, that they disconnected it from the car.

[00:29:53] It won 48.

[00:29:54] And he indicated that some more images were posted to Snapchat after they were dropped off.

[00:30:02] And so that enables them to kind of trace Abby and Libby as they are going from the Mears lot towards the Monon High Bridge.

[00:30:11] And, of course, he reminded us that Libby's phone shows that it was not moved after 2.32 p.m.

[00:30:21] And then he went and he kind of put it all together.

[00:30:24] He says, so we know at 12.25, Brianne arrives at Freedom Bridge, starts walking towards the Monon High Bridge.

[00:30:32] At 12.43, she arrives there.

[00:30:34] She takes pictures.

[00:30:35] She turns around.

[00:30:36] At 12.26, she takes the picture of the bench.

[00:30:39] Shortly afterwards, she sees Bridge Guy.

[00:30:42] At 14.6, Betsy Blair passes the Hoosier Harvest store.

[00:30:47] And she starts walking to the Monon High Bridge.

[00:30:52] Has her encounter there with Bridge Guy.

[00:30:56] At 14.8, Kelsey German drops off Abby and Libby.

[00:31:00] And the girls start to the Monon High Bridge.

[00:31:04] Pardon me, so at 2 o'clock, Betsy Blair actually reaches the Monon High Bridge.

[00:31:10] Not before.

[00:31:10] And when she is there, she sees Bridge Guy.

[00:31:13] She goes back to the Mears lot and on the way.

[00:31:16] She encounters Abby and Libby on their way to the bridge.

[00:31:20] And, of course, the video of Abby and Libby's kidnapping begins at 2.13 p.m.

[00:31:28] And at 2.32 p.m., the phone stops moving.

[00:31:31] And at 3.56, Sarah Carball sees the muddy and bloody man.

[00:31:37] And as McCleeland is saying all of this, he's standing in front of the digital map.

[00:31:43] And he's kind of making marks on it.

[00:31:45] So people can really follow along all of this much better than you probably can just listening to us.

[00:31:50] Yes.

[00:31:51] And, again, that was a good use of visuals, in my opinion, in this case.

[00:31:55] Because it probably sounds like we're throwing a lot at you.

[00:31:58] And I feel like we are.

[00:31:59] But when you're seeing it kind of all develop on this map, it's a little bit easier to follow, in my view.

[00:32:04] He talked about how Bridge Guy is on video kidnapping the girls.

[00:32:08] And after that, they are dead.

[00:32:09] Therefore, he's, you know, that's felony kidnapping.

[00:32:12] I'm sorry, felony murder.

[00:32:14] Yeah.

[00:32:15] Via kidnapping.

[00:32:16] And, quote, and he said, like, the goal became, quote, if we can determine who Bridge Guy is, we can determine who killed Libby and Abby, end quote.

[00:32:28] At this point, we do what the kids call a time jump.

[00:32:31] And we jump ahead to 2022.

[00:32:33] And this is when volunteer Kathy Shank finds a lead sheet that was created or written by Dan Doolin.

[00:32:44] And the information in that lead sheet concerns a man, Richard Allen, who says he was on the trail from 1.30 to 3.30, says he saw girls.

[00:32:54] And she realizes how important this is.

[00:33:01] And she takes it to Tony Liggett.

[00:33:04] And Liggett also realizes how important it is because he knows that the girls that Richard Allen says he saw, they saw Bridge Guy.

[00:33:14] I mean, this is such an important moment in this whole investigation.

[00:33:18] I just don't want to overlook what what Miss Shank did.

[00:33:22] I mean, that cannot be overstated.

[00:33:25] We would not be here.

[00:33:26] We would not be having this trial if it were not for her.

[00:33:30] Yeah.

[00:33:30] And also, kudos to Tony Liggett for immediately recognizing this, the importance of it, and for taking action.

[00:33:40] He goes to Steve Mullen.

[00:33:43] They call in Dan Doolin.

[00:33:45] And they go in and they again review the Hoover Drew Harvester video.

[00:33:50] And they see a car on it that matches the car that was registered to Richard Allen.

[00:34:00] Did we see Liggett's pictures of Allen's car?

[00:34:03] We did.

[00:34:03] At a CVS?

[00:34:04] Because then Tony Liggett then also at some point goes to CVS when Richard Allen is working there and takes photos of Allen's car.

[00:34:14] And that is important for a number of reasons.

[00:34:19] One reason is he is able to, through his photographs, pinpoint a unique identifying feature from Allen's car.

[00:34:28] Yes.

[00:34:29] And those were the fact that the rims were such that they allowed light through.

[00:34:33] And in the Who Is Your Harvester video, as they pointed out, you could very clearly see light coming through those rims, I guess is the word.

[00:34:42] But, and so, yeah, so that it fit.

[00:34:44] It fit and it matched in his original tip.

[00:34:48] Allen said, hey guys, I'm there from 1.30 to 3.30.

[00:34:52] And the timestamp is Allen's car is going by at 1.27.

[00:34:57] So it's, yeah, it's spot on.

[00:34:58] And as you said before, it looks like his car.

[00:35:00] It looks like his car.

[00:35:02] It looks exactly like his car.

[00:35:03] Can you identify it because you can't see the license plate?

[00:35:06] No, you can't because you can't see the license plate.

[00:35:09] But it looks exactly like his car.

[00:35:10] It looks exactly like his car.

[00:35:12] And it does have that unique feature with the rims.

[00:35:15] Yes.

[00:35:16] And it's there when he said it.

[00:35:18] Yeah.

[00:35:20] So after all of this is done on October 13th, 2022, McClellan reminds us that Richard Allen was interviewed by Steve Mullen and Tony Liggett.

[00:35:29] And during that interview, Richard Allen confirmed that he wore the same clothes as Bridge Guy on the day in question.

[00:35:35] He confirms he was on the day.

[00:35:36] He was on the trail on the day in question.

[00:35:38] He confirms he was on the first platform of the bridge on the day in question.

[00:35:43] And he also confirms that he did not see anyone but the girls he ran into on the day in question.

[00:35:52] The one thing he changes is he now says he was actually there from 1230 to 130.

[00:35:59] And McClellan in his closing also reminded us that Richard Allen became hostile as he was confronted with the evidence against him.

[00:36:09] And when shown the Bridge Guy picture, he made the odd comment.

[00:36:14] If that picture was taken by the girl's phone, it is not me.

[00:36:19] Yeah.

[00:36:20] Quote, as the interview goes on, he becomes more aggressive, more hostile, end quote.

[00:36:24] I'm just going to say this.

[00:36:25] I think.

[00:36:27] I have a hard time square.

[00:36:29] I thought Dr. Polly Westcott for a good defense witness.

[00:36:33] She was organized.

[00:36:34] She had stuff to say.

[00:36:35] I think there were some oversights that I would have loved to know more about with her neuro.

[00:36:40] Psychology analysis, like namely possibility of alcoholism and being involved.

[00:36:45] But I felt like generally.

[00:36:47] But one thing that I really had trouble squaring was what she the picture she painted of Allen is this completely passive, submissive guy who relies on his wife to do everything for him, including pick him up when he inevitably fails at work.

[00:37:01] With the guy on the video, especially the one with Steve Mullen and Tony Liggett, because.

[00:37:08] That didn't really strike me as a match there.

[00:37:11] He he got pretty frustrated and aggressive.

[00:37:13] He was, you know, he's been painted as this sort of internal sad sack, frankly, by the defense of like, oh, I'm just, you know, nothing, you know, blah, blah, blah.

[00:37:22] But no one likes me.

[00:37:23] He didn't seem that concerned about being liked by these investigators when he stormed out calling Steve Mullen an asshole.

[00:37:30] So, I mean, like I would have I think that would have been something for the defense to square away a little bit of like, oh, well, he would act normal and that but he was masking.

[00:37:38] But he really did have these problems.

[00:37:40] Like that would have been something to square away because when they brought this one up again, I was just like, that does not fit with what we've been told this guy is like.

[00:37:48] And that's a problem, I think, for the defense.

[00:37:52] I agree.

[00:37:53] After this interview, as Nick McClellan reminds us in his closing, police searched Richard Allen's home.

[00:38:01] They find the car, which is we've indicated is this particular model with these particular rims that show light through it.

[00:38:08] They find knives.

[00:38:09] They find box cutters.

[00:38:10] They find a blue Carhartt jacket identical to the one that was worn by Bridge Guy.

[00:38:17] They find a hope box that has another bullet in it.

[00:38:21] They find a 40 caliber Sig Sauer gun.

[00:38:25] McClellan said some people would call this almost a Bridge Guy starter kit, which I thought was an interesting turn of phrase.

[00:38:32] They also found a number of pictures of the Monon High Bridge, which clearly showed that it was a place that Richard Allen was familiar with and visited with his family.

[00:38:44] So one note about the kind of search, you know, like all this stuff from his house was when it came to his phones, interestingly enough, while he kept, you know, quite a few phones from his past, one that was missing was the one that he had in 2017 at the time of the murders.

[00:39:02] And they knew this because of Doolin's note about, I forget what it's called, but like the specific number of the phone.

[00:39:09] Not the phone number, but each device has a specific number that is unique to it.

[00:39:15] So that one is gone.

[00:39:16] They've never found that.

[00:39:18] Nobody knows where that is.

[00:39:21] And yeah, it's interesting.

[00:39:25] So there was some interesting information that we got about the Google searches that Richard Allen did.

[00:39:31] One was specified by McClelland on April 17th, 2022.

[00:39:35] He was looking up the Delphi murder.

[00:39:38] Was that when he was looking up the Delphi murders as well?

[00:39:40] Yes.

[00:39:40] And then also then things like, it sounded somewhat suicidal, like, quote, should I die now?

[00:39:45] Should I die?

[00:39:46] Like things like that again and again.

[00:39:48] I'm going to tell you this.

[00:39:50] As somebody working in true crime, well, first of all, I don't, it does not bother me at all that he was looking up the Delphi murders.

[00:39:56] I imagine many people in Carroll County and beyond were doing that any given day.

[00:40:01] I imagine that most people listening to this program, including you and me, have looked up that sometimes.

[00:40:08] Second of all, should I die now?

[00:40:09] That's certainly concerning from a suicidal view.

[00:40:12] And I understand what McClelland is saying, where it's like he's looking up the murders and then he's feeling so guilty about it.

[00:40:17] He's asking, should I die now?

[00:40:18] I get what he's doing there.

[00:40:20] But I just in general feel like my search history is probably so messed up.

[00:40:26] I'm sure I'm like on every watch list if there is such a thing, because I look up a lot of stuff about murders and it, you know, like all sorts of just weird stuff.

[00:40:36] So I feel like I don't find any of the stuff about Google searches all that compelling, because I'm sure our listeners can relate.

[00:40:45] We wouldn't want our Google searches coming out.

[00:40:47] They'd probably be somewhat morbid and a bit weird, a bit off the off, you know.

[00:40:52] So, you know, I remember even in college, I'd be like looking into like a weird period of history or some like kind of morbid little thing.

[00:41:00] And I just to me.

[00:41:04] That I mean, I guess it goes toward the totality of everything else, but to me, it's not super meaningful.

[00:41:10] I'd argue that it goes to totality and it's another pebble on the scale.

[00:41:14] I yeah, but maybe while some other things are rocks, that is to me a tiny pebble because I just any true crime fan would be, you know, would be under suspicion at that point.

[00:41:26] McClellan then talked about how Richard Allen's gun was sent to the Indiana State Police Lab, where it was tested by Melissa Oberg, who has 16 years of experience.

[00:41:37] And she found that the bullet at the crime scene had been cycled through Richard Allen's gun.

[00:41:45] And he indicated, of course, she had examined other guns and had not found this result with any of them.

[00:41:52] And he also reminded the jury that Oberg's results had been verified three times by her boss and she had never been wrong in her career.

[00:42:03] So at this point, they have Richard Allen on the trails and they have a bullet from his gun that ties him to the crime scene.

[00:42:13] Also, he made sure to point out that her her boss was the former president of AFTE or AFTE or the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners.

[00:42:28] This became a big deal during Dr. Eric Warren's testimony the other day where he's a board member of AFTE.

[00:42:36] So they were just basically being like, whatever.

[00:42:41] Richard Allen came in for another interview, as we know, on 10-26-22.

[00:42:45] And during that interview, he indicated he had never loaned out his gun or clothes or ammunition to anyone else.

[00:42:52] And so he therefore had no explanation for how a bullet from his gun could be found at this crime scene.

[00:43:03] And McClellan said, well, the bullet came from his gun because he racked that gun to intimidate the girls because he wanted to use his power to force them to do what he wanted.

[00:43:14] And as McClellan said that, there was real anger and passion in his voice.

[00:43:19] Yes, definitely.

[00:43:20] And in addition to that, he talked about the video with Jerry Holman, specifically a moment that caught our attention as well.

[00:43:29] Yeah, this is from that interview that we're discussing.

[00:43:31] Yes.

[00:43:32] What was that moment?

[00:43:33] He talked about when Alan was talking to his wife, Kathy, he said, quote, you see how he tried to manipulate her, end quote.

[00:43:44] So with Kathy Allen kind of adopting almost the same tone and tenor that he had been using with Holman is sort of, you know, repeating the same thing to her over and over and over and over again, where he's saying, I know you know that I couldn't do this.

[00:44:04] And, you know, like this just it was weird.

[00:44:06] I mean, honestly, I found it somewhat off putting myself.

[00:44:09] I think everyone, you know.

[00:44:14] Obviously, any marriage relies on trust, right?

[00:44:18] But if there's some specific accusations being hurled and some concerns around that.

[00:44:24] I mean, I would certainly expect a heck of more than that.

[00:44:28] No offense, Kevin.

[00:44:30] But if you hit me up with the I know, you know, I know I couldn't.

[00:44:35] That would actually be a huge red flag to me because it's like, why are you trying to tell me what I'm thinking instead of just telling me what the heck is going on right now?

[00:44:44] I'm also struck by the fact that I believe Kathy in that video said something to the effect of you told me you weren't on the bridge.

[00:44:50] Why would she have that impression?

[00:44:52] And like, I get it.

[00:44:55] Years later, you know, maybe maybe memories get changed or, you know, like whatever.

[00:45:00] Like, I'm not saying that's the biggest deal in the world.

[00:45:01] I'm just saying that, like.

[00:45:04] If you told me you were specifically not doing something where then that came out that you had told other people otherwise and then there's horrific, you know, accusations going around, I would certainly want a more detailed conversation.

[00:45:16] Maybe I'd want to have that outside of the police station so it's not recorded.

[00:45:21] But I would certainly want something a little bit more robust than that.

[00:45:25] What do you think?

[00:45:26] Or would you just take me for it for my I know, you know, I know, you know.

[00:45:31] I didn't do it.

[00:45:33] Absolutely not.

[00:45:34] Yeah.

[00:45:35] Right.

[00:45:37] I'll need sworn affidavits.

[00:45:39] Okay.

[00:45:39] Friggin lawyers.

[00:45:41] Do you I mean, like, like, what is that?

[00:45:44] Like, I guess like my manipulator, like, like spidey sense went off when he was talking about that.

[00:45:50] Is that too hard on him?

[00:45:52] Is that could you imagine there being a good reason for someone behaving that way in that situation?

[00:45:57] It's hard to understand the dynamics of someone else's marriage, but it made me uncomfortable to watch.

[00:46:03] Yeah, it made me very uncomfortable.

[00:46:06] I feel like my takeaway of that video, the defense had sort of built it as like Jerry Holman freaks out.

[00:46:12] And my takeaway from the video is like, yeah, there was a lot of yelling at the end, but I was kind of hung up on that a little bit because I didn't.

[00:46:20] I didn't expect it to be.

[00:46:23] There was something very like.

[00:46:25] It was disturbing to watch that part.

[00:46:27] It was disturbing to watch that part.

[00:46:28] Like, I just felt like, oh, man, like there's something very wrong with that whole interaction.

[00:46:34] So the conclusion that interview, of course, Richard Allen was arrested shortly thereafter.

[00:46:39] He was moved to the Indiana Department of Corrections for his safety because Carroll County's sheriff, who was in Toblesenby, did not feel that their facilities could keep Richard Allen safe.

[00:46:54] And it was important to keep Richard Allen safe, not only from others, but from himself.

[00:47:00] And so McClellan reminded the jury that Richard Allen was then moved to Westville where he started to confess.

[00:47:09] He reminded the jury that on April 2nd, 2023, he had a phone call with his mother, Janice, where Richard Allen indicated that he has found Jesus.

[00:47:20] On April 3rd, 2023, he had a phone call with his wife, Cassie, where among other things, he said, I did it.

[00:47:27] You know I did it.

[00:47:28] I killed Abby and Libby.

[00:47:30] And he played that recording.

[00:47:32] Yes, he did.

[00:47:33] They played a number of recordings this time around.

[00:47:37] Anything from that recording that you want to highlight other than.

[00:47:40] I've said this.

[00:47:41] I've said this before.

[00:47:43] I can't get over for me personally.

[00:47:46] And this is just my own feeling.

[00:47:48] Maybe eventually it gets published and you feel differently and that's OK.

[00:47:51] But when I hear him saying Ricky, it's because you have to like this is a call from Ricky.

[00:47:59] To me, that is so similar to like the way Bridge Guy sounds to me.

[00:48:05] Like that.

[00:48:07] Like I'd heard.

[00:48:09] I'd like, yeah, he has a similar voice.

[00:48:11] Like I can see that.

[00:48:12] But when he says that for some reason, that for me was just like, wow, that almost.

[00:48:18] I that almost like I just I mean, did you hear that?

[00:48:23] Do you have a different view?

[00:48:24] Did not.

[00:48:24] I agree with you.

[00:48:25] Do you think that that sounded chillingly similar?

[00:48:29] I would say not just him saying Ricky, his voice on these calls is the voice of Bridge Guy.

[00:48:34] Yeah, I know.

[00:48:35] I mean, I agree.

[00:48:36] Well, yes, I agree.

[00:48:38] But I don't know.

[00:48:39] For some reason, that one always stood out to me.

[00:48:43] Kathy Allen, after he tells her this, says, oh, they're just messing with your food or your medication.

[00:48:49] No, you didn't.

[00:48:50] You know, you didn't.

[00:48:51] And she's crying.

[00:48:52] At one point, he says something about wanting to apologize to the families.

[00:48:56] And Kathy Allen weeping says, don't talk anymore.

[00:49:01] And she's like he starts off strong in the sense he's like, I did it.

[00:49:05] And then as she's crying and getting upset with him, he starts backing off and like, well, I think I did it.

[00:49:11] So I thought that was interesting in terms of the dynamic where he's kind of starts off with like, here you go.

[00:49:16] And then it's like, well, he kind of softens it a little bit as he goes on.

[00:49:22] McClellan then made the points that are important that this this confession was unprovoked, unpressured.

[00:49:29] And it was his own free will.

[00:49:32] And it was to his wife, Kathy.

[00:49:34] I did it.

[00:49:36] McClellan reminded the jury that after this, Richard Allen continued to confess.

[00:49:40] He wrote a note to the warden indicating he wanted to confess.

[00:49:45] And, quote, tell the families tell the family I am sorry.

[00:49:50] On April 5th, 2023, he had a detailed confession to Dr. Monica Walla in which he said, I'm sorry.

[00:50:02] And I killed them.

[00:50:04] Indicated that his his intent was sexual.

[00:50:08] His motive was sexual.

[00:50:09] He wanted to rape them.

[00:50:11] Thought the girls were older, but thought they might be as young as 11.

[00:50:16] How he'd been a selfish coward all his life and that he killed them, quote, he took their lives, quote, in order to preserve his own, end quote.

[00:50:24] And he was not suffering from any psychosis at this time.

[00:50:29] McClellan then began reading through lots and lots of other confessions and incriminating statements, many of which came from the door sheets, which were kept by the suicide companions.

[00:50:42] They include details like the fact that Allen said he killed the girls with a box cutter he stole from where he worked, which was CVS.

[00:50:50] And he subsequently left that box cutter in the CVS dumpster.

[00:50:56] And then on May 3rd, 2023, he had a longer confession to Dr. Walla.

[00:51:01] Can you tell us about that?

[00:51:02] In that confession to Dr. Walla, he talked about how he had some sort of breakfast with his family in the Mexico, Indiana area with his sister, Jamie, mother Janice and stepfather Marvin, I believe.

[00:51:17] And afterwards, instead of going to lunch as planned with his family, he bought a six pack of beer, drank three and then drank the rest later and then went to the bundled up, went to the trails where he laid in wait.

[00:51:32] He wanted to find a female to rape.

[00:51:37] And he ultimately followed the girls onto the bridge.

[00:51:41] He did something with his gun that he then believed led to the bullet falling out at some point.

[00:51:47] He did not get to rape them because he was interrupted by a van.

[00:51:52] And so then he forced the girls across the creek, killed them, made sure they were dead, covered the bodies with tree branches and then left the premises, avoiding trails in order to avoid detection.

[00:52:12] Got into his car and went home and then continued living his life afterwards.

[00:52:18] On May 10th, 2023, there was another call to Kathy Allen where he says, I need you to know that I did this.

[00:52:28] Also, there's a call to his mother at some point where he says, I'm just worried that you guys aren't going to love me because of the fact that I said that I did it.

[00:52:37] And she, his mother doesn't want to believe it.

[00:52:40] And he tells her, mom, I wouldn't sit here and tell you I didn't if I didn't do it.

[00:52:47] Tell you I did it, right?

[00:52:48] Yeah, I wouldn't sit here and tell you I did it if I did not do it.

[00:52:54] It struck me that both his mother and his wife consistently seem to be in heavy denial about what Richard Allen was trying to tell them.

[00:53:33] Yeah.

[00:53:34] Certainly, the defense has made much of Richard Allen being injected with Haldol to an antipsychotic.

[00:53:41] The defense has not presented any information that his food was being messed with or that he was being pumped with drugs in order to prompt this.

[00:53:52] They've not even really directly linked Haldol to what he was doing.

[00:53:55] Is that fair to say?

[00:53:56] That's fair to say.

[00:53:57] So were the defense attorneys telling the Allens that this is what was causing this and that they, you know, therefore shouldn't take it that seriously?

[00:54:07] Like, where were they getting that?

[00:54:09] Or was that something that they discussed amongst themselves and decided that that must be the most likely thing?

[00:54:14] I don't know.

[00:54:14] It's odd.

[00:54:16] And it's troubling.

[00:54:17] It is troubling indeed.

[00:54:21] Nick McLean is now getting close to the end of his remarks, and he mentions how Brian Harshman reviewed the notes and reports of the things that Richard Allen had said and was saying.

[00:54:33] And he notes the detail about Richard Allen being scared during the commission of the crime by seeing a van.

[00:54:40] He figures out by looking at a map where this van likely was on this one particular access road.

[00:54:47] And the only residence on that access road was Brad Weber.

[00:54:51] He looks into it.

[00:54:52] Brad Weber owned a van.

[00:54:54] And he learns that Brad Weber left work that day at 2.02 to make the 25-minute drive back to his home.

[00:55:02] And so he speaks with Brad Weber and confirms all of that.

[00:55:06] And so this detail about Brad Weber driving on this access road at exactly the time Richard Allen says he saw him, that this is a detail that only the killer would know.

[00:55:20] And I think one thing to distinguish here is, like, I think in a previous episode, Kevin and I said we hadn't really heard about the van.

[00:55:26] And I know I think some folks have reached out to us helpfully and said, oh, well, people were talking here, screenshots about vans in regards to the Delphi case, and we appreciate them sending us that.

[00:55:36] And even the defense brought up some of that.

[00:55:38] Like, did you know that there was a van that was trying to give candy to people according to this Reddit post?

[00:55:43] So, like, that's all good data to have.

[00:55:46] For me, what's more important is, like, the fact that this van story aligns with what Brad Weber would have been doing that day.

[00:55:55] So it's not just, like, a van could be involved, or, like, a van gets mentioned.

[00:56:00] It's, like, Brad Weber's van would have been here at the same time Richard Allen says this is happening.

[00:56:07] And then it fits with the timeline of the crime.

[00:56:10] Does that make sense?

[00:56:11] Makes sense to me.

[00:56:12] So it's not just van equals guilt.

[00:56:15] It's, you know, what McClellan is saying.

[00:56:18] It's, like, van plus the fact that it fits.

[00:56:21] It's, like, puzzle pieces fitting together.

[00:56:25] McClellan says, so now all the pieces are clear.

[00:56:27] He reviews the counts.

[00:56:29] And then he shows again the pictures of Abby and Libby in the car on the way to the Monon High Bridge.

[00:56:36] And he says, Bridge Guy stole the life away from Abby and Libby.

[00:56:43] And he says what happened is, in his view, Bridge Guy cut Libby German's throat first.

[00:56:49] She struggled to stay alive.

[00:56:52] She cried.

[00:56:53] Because we know about the tear on the cheek.

[00:56:57] And then he cut Abby's throat and watched as Abby died slowly.

[00:57:02] For five years, said McClellan, he lived amongst us.

[00:57:06] And he didn't realize he had left behind the cartridge.

[00:57:10] And he asked the jury to enter in a guilty verdict on all counts.

[00:57:16] And that was the end of his first speech.

[00:57:20] Yes, absolutely.

[00:57:24] And then there was a break.

[00:57:26] Then there was a break.

[00:57:28] And then it was time for the defense.

[00:57:30] And their remarks were delivered by Brad Rosey.

[00:57:35] I'll say at the outset, I thought there were some interesting points in his speech.

[00:57:42] Yeah.

[00:57:43] Ultimately, to be honest, it ended up at a point so ridiculous and so absurd.

[00:57:49] It almost seemed like something out of a Saturday Night Live skit.

[00:57:52] I agree.

[00:57:53] I'm going to say this.

[00:57:54] So I felt Baldwin's opening.

[00:57:59] You know, we've been told that he likes the opening statements.

[00:58:02] And I think he also had some good points in that.

[00:58:05] And I feel like not all of them have, frankly, been really addressed at trial, which is a separate problem.

[00:58:10] But even when you don't consider that, like it wasn't super stirring.

[00:58:14] I felt like he could have gone for the emotion more.

[00:58:16] You know, average suburban dad put through hell, wrongfully convicted, wrongfully accused.

[00:58:24] Like we tug on the heartstrings a little bit.

[00:58:27] You know what I mean?

[00:58:27] Like, why not?

[00:58:30] And instead, we kind of just got basically a grocery list of things that they had a problem with.

[00:58:36] And we got that from Rosie.

[00:58:39] I actually felt like he was doing a like, even though I felt it was pretty badly organized, I felt like at least parts of it were engaging.

[00:58:48] And I certainly was like interested.

[00:58:51] But yeah, we went off a cliff.

[00:58:53] And so I feel like Baldwin's opener was stronger than this, even though I think I liked elements of this way better than Baldwin's opener.

[00:59:00] Does that make sense?

[00:59:01] I mean, the ending, guys, was just.

[00:59:03] We'll get to that.

[00:59:04] We'll get to that.

[00:59:04] So, Rosie begins by talking about, I know we've been here almost a month, 17 days of testimony, 60 witnesses, 200 to 300 exhibits.

[00:59:13] There's an awful lot to talk about.

[00:59:16] He said he was going to try to narrow it down to four themes.

[00:59:22] Theme one was the broken timeline, or what he says was the broken timeline.

[00:59:26] Theme two was bungled ballistics.

[00:59:29] Theme three is false confessions.

[00:59:32] Theme four is digital forensics.

[00:59:34] But then he said also, I guess there's kind of another theme, which is the theme of they don't want you to hear everything.

[00:59:41] And so we had to tell you things that they didn't want you to know.

[00:59:46] And the first instance he cited of this was he said that the prosecution refused to have height analysis done of the bridge guy.

[00:59:57] And I believe Holman testified that the reason they didn't do that was because they told it would.

[01:00:02] They were told that such an analysis would be very inaccurate.

[01:00:05] Which also Rosie himself noted here by saying, well, yeah, it could be off by two to four inches.

[01:00:10] So there'd be a huge discrepancy.

[01:00:12] But, you know, they could have ruled some people out like what really tall or really short people.

[01:00:17] He then mentioned that hours and hours of video interviews were lost.

[01:00:22] Wait, can I just pause for a second?

[01:00:23] Can we talk about the height?

[01:00:25] But, you know, this is the this is their time.

[01:00:28] The defense, as any defense attorney will tell you, the defense gets one shot.

[01:00:33] The prosecution in a way has an advantage with closing arguments because they get a rebuttal at the end.

[01:00:39] They can leave the jury with their words ringing in their head.

[01:00:43] So Rosie and all defense attorneys really need to.

[01:00:49] Wow.

[01:00:50] The jury, because this is their last chance to talk to them.

[01:00:53] Do you start off with the height analysis thing?

[01:00:56] I do not.

[01:00:57] No, I don't even mention that because that is just minutiae.

[01:01:02] Like tell.

[01:01:03] I mean.

[01:01:05] Yeah.

[01:01:06] Anyways.

[01:01:06] OK, go ahead.

[01:01:07] Sorry.

[01:01:08] I just I just wanted to say, like, that's not where I jump off on this.

[01:01:13] Things they don't want you to know.

[01:01:15] Another example of this was the story of Brad Heath, which he says may not be the biggest piece of evidence in the case.

[01:01:21] Maybe not something to bring up then.

[01:01:23] But it is worth knowing.

[01:01:24] And we told you Brad Heath was the gentleman who said that he saw a car parked, I think, not too far away from the CPS lot on the street.

[01:01:32] And it was there for a few hours.

[01:01:34] And it's interesting.

[01:01:35] He's conceding this wasn't a big piece of evidence, but we wanted you to hear about it.

[01:01:39] It's like, OK, like he's doing this kind of like you can't handle the truth bit.

[01:01:44] But it's also like.

[01:01:47] It's like all I could think of in those moments was like, yeah, but like, who cares?

[01:01:52] Like he saw a car that day and kind of fell apart.

[01:01:56] As as they put it on.

[01:01:58] And I guess it's like I feel like in this case there are some big hot button issues that the defense can really work with and do a good job around.

[01:02:10] Hide analysis and Brad Heath don't seem to fit that description.

[01:02:14] And that's where we're starting.

[01:02:15] Why are we starting there?

[01:02:17] And then he talks about how the prosecution had a witness, Betsy Blair.

[01:02:22] And he said, well, the prosecution only asked the questions they wanted.

[01:02:25] We had to bring out other information in cross exam.

[01:02:28] And that's actually literally how the process is designed to work.

[01:02:33] Because obviously defense wouldn't be asking prosecution questions.

[01:02:37] The prosecution wouldn't be asking defense questions.

[01:02:39] And so the part, the point of the adversarial system is that both people representing both interests are talking to the same witnesses to get all the information out before the jury.

[01:02:49] Then he brought up Sarah Carbaugh.

[01:02:52] And boy, do they not like Sarah Carbaugh.

[01:02:55] This is the muddy and bloody witness.

[01:02:58] And he said that, well, I thought it was interesting.

[01:03:02] He said that Sarah Carbaugh, of course, of course, saw a person who she said had mud and blood on him walking down the street shortly after the deaths of those two girls.

[01:03:13] And I was surprised he didn't name those two girls.

[01:03:16] Just saying those two girls sounded a bit dismissive to me.

[01:03:19] Yeah.

[01:03:20] He said about Carbaugh, to your point, he said, quote, I've got to take a breath before I talk about her.

[01:03:26] And he said, you know, just as a reminder to the jury, you may discount the testimony of a witness altogether.

[01:03:32] And he was plainly suggesting they should do that with the Sarah Carbaugh testimony, which they plainly don't like.

[01:03:40] I have a question.

[01:03:41] Why do you think they care so much about Sarah Carbaugh?

[01:03:43] Because, I mean, it's not like the sketches were in.

[01:03:45] I mean, like her sketch looks a lot more like Richard Allen, in my view, than the younger guy sketch, which, again, like they're sketches.

[01:03:53] But I'll jump ahead right now briefly and mention something which we can skip over later.

[01:04:00] Later on, he talks about Sarah Carbaugh's testimony about how much blood this person had on him.

[01:04:07] And he said, well, if you believe that testimony, again, apparently he doesn't, then why wouldn't there be any blood in Richard Allen's car years later?

[01:04:19] So it's like that.

[01:04:23] That's a good argument.

[01:04:24] Yes, that is a good argument.

[01:04:26] So why say don't believe Sarah Carbaugh when an aspect of her argument could be used to your advantage?

[01:04:32] Why not say, listen, Sarah Carbaugh came forward and saw this guy and it's not our guy.

[01:04:39] And we know it's not our guy because, listen, guys, years later, even after you clean, you can still find blood in a car.

[01:04:47] That would be good for them.

[01:04:48] But instead it's like she could have been good for them.

[01:04:51] She's got she got them so salty.

[01:04:53] It's like they just wanted to, like, fight her at the end.

[01:04:55] And it's like, you know, like I get that she was a bit sassy on the stand to them.

[01:05:00] But I mean, I feel like ultimately I feel like ultimately they seem at times like they're bridge guys lawyers.

[01:05:07] No, I mean, because they're like, oh, well, just because you saw this guy, you say this bridge guy walking around covered in mud and blood doesn't mean anything.

[01:05:12] It's like why it's like almost like sometimes it feels like they're conceding a lot with with the with the with the ways they go.

[01:05:20] And I was I'm so glad you mentioned that because I was thinking like great argument.

[01:05:24] Focus on that. Focus on what they didn't find instead of like trying to fight a witness who is not identifying your client.

[01:05:33] Unless you think your client is bridge guy, I guess.

[01:05:36] But back to the theme of things they don't want you to know, the state did not bother to bring in Dave McCain.

[01:05:42] We had to do that.

[01:05:44] They didn't tell you about him because it doesn't fit their narrative.

[01:05:47] Dave McCain is an older gentleman who was at the Monon High Bridge shortly after the girls were abducted and murdered.

[01:05:57] And he didn't really since he came to the scene afterwards, he didn't really notice anything of relevance.

[01:06:04] And he also Rosie mentioned Shelby Hicks and Cheyenne, who also were at the Monon High Bridge after the crime is said to have been committed.

[01:06:15] And I'm talking about the fact that the kidnapping occurred in 213 and both all these people were there considerably after that.

[01:06:24] Yes, considerably.

[01:06:26] He also noted that he called out Steve Mullen for kind of saying testifying that Alan said he might have gone either way in terms of a route to the bridge that day.

[01:06:37] But he said Rick's version of the route wouldn't have taken him past the Hoosier Harvest Store thing.

[01:06:43] I didn't find any of that particularly compelling because people can drive wherever they want.

[01:06:47] Like, it's not it doesn't seem that deep to me.

[01:06:50] But.

[01:06:51] Yeah, he says more stuff they didn't want you to see, he said.

[01:06:55] The two interviews of the interrogation, it wasn't until Baldwin introduced them that you got to see them.

[01:07:02] Um, uh.

[01:07:05] I don't feel like those interrogations were as good for Alan as the defense seemed to think they are.

[01:07:11] I guess.

[01:07:12] I don't know.

[01:07:13] I mean, he's certainly very adamant that he didn't do it.

[01:07:16] I think that's good for Alan.

[01:07:17] Um, saying no, it wasn't me at all.

[01:07:20] Um, there are weird moments, though, like the Kathy Allen exchange and frankly him being kind of belligerent in the first one.

[01:07:27] Now, you could say, hey, Anya, I'd be belligerent if someone was accusing me of something horrible and I didn't do it.

[01:07:33] And I agree with you.

[01:07:34] But I'm saying that doesn't fit what we've been told about Richard Allen by these defense experts.

[01:07:39] Uh, he talked about he tried to suggest that Brad Webber's gun might or Brad Webber's gun could not be excluded.

[01:07:47] Is that what he said?

[01:07:48] Couldn't be excluded.

[01:07:49] And he kept on using the word ironically wrong, I think.

[01:07:53] Do you remember that?

[01:07:54] I don't.

[01:07:54] Let me, we might be getting to that.

[01:07:57] So, but yeah, that was in conjunction with Brad Webber.

[01:07:59] I will get to that when we get there.

[01:08:00] I'm not sure if that.

[01:08:01] Uh, he showed a picture of Brad Webber's garage that was taken shortly after the murders and there were sticks there.

[01:08:08] And there were also sticks on the bodies.

[01:08:11] There were also sticks in the forest.

[01:08:12] So.

[01:08:13] Probably sticks in the wood pile outside of our house.

[01:08:15] I mean, like, I thought it was kind of weird with Webber.

[01:08:19] I felt in the beginning they were really gunning for Webber.

[01:08:23] They were like, this guy, like, look at him.

[01:08:25] He's, he's the killer.

[01:08:27] And then, and then actually Baldwin, when he recalled Webber, went a lot easier on him.

[01:08:33] Yes.

[01:08:34] So, I was like, okay, they've kind of gone from kind of enemies to neutral and then back to enemies with Rosie here where he's kind of making some of these statements.

[01:08:42] He said, then said that Brad Webber told, uh, Officer Gautet that he, that he, Brad Webber did not go straight home that day.

[01:08:51] Uh, Rosie complained that, uh, uh, Nick McClellan did not play all the phone calls.

[01:08:58] Isn't it suspicious that he didn't play all?

[01:09:00] Isn't it suspicious that the FBI left the investigation midway through?

[01:09:04] That's the point that was not highlighted by the prosecution.

[01:09:07] Here's a, here's a, here's a, here's a thought.

[01:09:10] Here's a thought.

[01:09:10] That point wasn't even highlighted by the frigging defense.

[01:09:13] Okay.

[01:09:14] They made a big deal about it in the opening, didn't they?

[01:09:17] Baldwin made a big deal about it in the opening.

[01:09:19] And when you do that.

[01:09:20] Did almost nothing about it in the trial.

[01:09:21] Baldwin then got the chance to, um, directly question superintendent of the Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, who testified that it was his decision that the FBI leave the case.

[01:09:35] And he has this man up on the stand.

[01:09:37] He can ask him anything about this.

[01:09:39] He can, he can drag out every piece of drama about this and make the Indiana State Police look awful.

[01:09:46] And oh my gosh, they kicked out the feds that they, they threw out the G-men.

[01:09:51] How could they, you know, the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover is weeping.

[01:09:57] And he, that was it.

[01:10:00] Whose decision was it to have them leave?

[01:10:03] Mine.

[01:10:03] Thank you very much.

[01:10:04] That was it.

[01:10:05] Why would you make such a big deal of something and then go nowhere with it?

[01:10:10] I don't know.

[01:10:11] Maybe behind, like in some sidebar, maybe the prosecution tied their hands with this.

[01:10:16] I don't know.

[01:10:17] But like, that was shocking to me.

[01:10:20] Because it just, it went nowhere.

[01:10:22] But then they're trying to like, like they have like these two pieces of bread and they're trying to act like it's a sandwich.

[01:10:28] Yeah.

[01:10:28] Because it's like, yeah, we got the, you mentioned it as a big deal and then at the beginning and the end and then there's air between that.

[01:10:34] So I don't understand that.

[01:10:36] Because presumably there are instances where we could say ISP quote unquote kicking out the FBI is a big mistake and they shouldn't have done that.

[01:10:46] Or you could say that made sense because it wasn't working out.

[01:10:50] Or you could say if the FBI has been working it for a number of years but they need to put resources elsewhere, people retire, people move.

[01:10:59] I mean, maybe they're not doing that much and maybe it's like, well, we came into this because it was a, you know, child kidnapping murder.

[01:11:05] But we've kind of done all we can do for now.

[01:11:07] You have our number.

[01:11:08] If you need something, call us.

[01:11:09] Then that's also not a big deal.

[01:11:11] So I'm not saying, I don't know what happened.

[01:11:13] But the reason we don't know what happened is because the defense didn't ask those questions.

[01:11:17] And should I note that they're not, he's not really talking about the events of February 13th, 2017.

[01:11:22] Oh, yeah.

[01:11:24] And as I said at the beginning, when someone, when a lawyer in a trial and his closing is not focusing on the events that are the focus of said trial, there's usually a reason.

[01:11:37] Hey, what was Richard Allen doing that day?

[01:11:39] How did his family breakfast go where he abruptly left and decided to buy a six pack of beer?

[01:11:45] Are they saying that didn't happen?

[01:11:47] Do they have any evidence that that didn't happen, that he was actually just at home chilling?

[01:11:51] I mean, like, where was his phone that day?

[01:11:53] What happened to his phone from 2017?

[01:11:56] He talks about the videos from Westville.

[01:11:58] Richard Allen was 13 months in an isolated cell.

[01:12:03] All they talk, all the prosecution wants to talk about is what he said.

[01:12:07] All they want you to do is look at words in a transcript.

[01:12:12] And then he starts talking about Melissa Oberg, who's the analyst who tied the bullet from the crime scene to Richard Allen's gun.

[01:12:21] He refers to that as the magic bullet and talks about the infamous photos.

[01:12:26] Because how would you describe those photos?

[01:12:30] I had trouble.

[01:12:32] I didn't really see them.

[01:12:33] But what basically my understanding is that the defense blew up the photographs that Oberg took with the microscope.

[01:12:40] And what we've heard from Oberg and, I guess, to a certain extent from the defense's witness, Eric Warren, through his past interviews, is that it's not an appropriate thing to just judge some analysis from photographs alone.

[01:12:58] Because what it is essentially is, like, you're taking a frame from a movie and you're not getting the full picture.

[01:13:03] You're taking a 2D image and what the person under the microscope is actually seeing is 3D.

[01:13:10] And so it's inappropriate to draw conclusions based on that alone.

[01:13:15] But the defense is saying these don't look the same or this is, you know, like, basically drawing conclusions from photos alone, even though we were kind of told that that was not what to do.

[01:13:25] Yeah, I thought, what do you make of them consistently calling this thing the magic bullet?

[01:13:30] As somebody who's been interested in a certain other crime case.

[01:13:36] They're just trying to capitalize on a famous phrase and twist it to their own advantage.

[01:13:41] But it doesn't make any sense to me because in the JFK assassination, the magic bullet refers to some people's incorrect belief that somehow the bullet was doing magical things like ricocheting and, you know, making motions.

[01:13:53] So in the sense of even if we disagree with that assertion, that phrase makes sense in the JFK assassination because the bullet would have to be magic in order to do what these people are saying it was doing.

[01:14:07] But in this situation, there's no, like, it just seems like they're just, I don't know, like, they think it sounds cool.

[01:14:14] I don't know.

[01:14:17] Talked about the phone data.

[01:14:18] Yeah, and again, trying to make hay out of the recent finding where one of their experts says that something or headphones were, the expert said the phone didn't move, but headphones were plugged in and taken out hours apart after the phone stopped moving.

[01:14:37] The prosecution indicates that that was just an error caused by the phone being wet.

[01:14:43] Or dirty.

[01:14:44] Or dirty.

[01:14:45] When dirt or moisture gets in headphone jacks, it sounds like then this thing can happen pretty readily.

[01:14:52] He talked about the prosecution having desperation over the last few weeks.

[01:14:58] He talked about, oh, them trying to get information about the Brad Webber van.

[01:15:02] That shows desperation.

[01:15:06] The fact that at the beginning of the trial, Andy Baldwin mentioned this hair found in Abby's hand, and apparently that was only recently tested for DNA.

[01:15:18] That's an indication of desperation on his part, on the prosecution's part.

[01:15:24] He talked about the Google searches that we referred to earlier.

[01:15:28] He said there's no proof that Richard Allen actually did those searches.

[01:15:31] See, what my move would be is that's not a big deal.

[01:15:33] People search weird stuff all the time.

[01:15:35] Well, he did say that then, too.

[01:15:37] He followed up by saying there's no proof he did it.

[01:15:39] And by the way, someone in Delphi searching about the Delphi murders.

[01:15:43] Who cares?

[01:15:43] Yeah, he absolutely made it.

[01:15:45] That was exactly what he should have said on that.

[01:15:48] And he also noted he looked up a movie like The Killing of the Sacred Deer.

[01:15:52] And people look up movies.

[01:15:54] Who cares?

[01:15:55] People might be into horror.

[01:15:56] People might be into different kinds of movies.

[01:15:58] People might have whatever going on in their personal lives that make them look up some weird stuff.

[01:16:04] And I don't...

[01:16:05] I shudder to think if people would see our Google search history.

[01:16:08] Yeah, exactly.

[01:16:09] I'm sure we all would feel uncomfortable with that because we're probably looking up, even if it's not like creepy weird, it's probably just kind of weird or off the wall.

[01:16:15] Like, what?

[01:16:16] And I feel like I just...

[01:16:18] I don't really judge anything like that unless it's like when I look back at like the Kagan Klein case, he was looking up some really horrific, creepy, like messed up, sexualizing children stuff.

[01:16:34] That's not what I'm talking about.

[01:16:35] That's a red flag that should have been brought into that case.

[01:16:39] In this case, it just...

[01:16:41] It doesn't seem...

[01:16:42] I'm not...

[01:16:42] You know, I just don't think it's that much of a bombshell here.

[01:16:46] He talked about Dr. Korr, who testified and, according to Rosie, suddenly decided that the murder weapon could be a box cutter.

[01:16:55] Rosie said, well, he made that determination and changed his mind, but he didn't file a supplemental report.

[01:17:01] So another clue is when an argument is not terribly convincing is when people engage not with the substance of it, but rather with the process.

[01:17:10] So he's not really disputing the result.

[01:17:13] He just said, well, there should have been a supplemental report.

[01:17:15] I liked it when he said, quote, he walked into his garage and ta-da, it might be a box cutter, end quote.

[01:17:21] But yeah, I agree.

[01:17:23] Talked about Sarah Carbaugh again and said it would not be unreasonable to conclude that Sarah Carbaugh saw nothing.

[01:17:30] Pay no attention to the woman in the car.

[01:17:31] I just...

[01:17:32] Why?

[01:17:33] Like, why?

[01:17:33] They really could have just, like, go with Carbaugh.

[01:17:37] Go with her sighting.

[01:17:39] He had blood all over his pants and they searched his car and nothing came of it.

[01:17:45] Are we saying that he, like, took his pants off before driving home?

[01:17:49] Is that realistic?

[01:17:50] Like, they could have really done a lot with that, I felt.

[01:17:53] And listen, in my view, you know, I mean, like, I mentioned the murder of Jeff Gurman in Las Vegas, the reporter by Robert Tellis.

[01:18:03] That was a situation where I believe they searched his car relatively shortly after the murders and I don't believe they found DNA in his car.

[01:18:09] They did find his DNA under the victim's fingernails.

[01:18:13] So there was DNA in the case, but not where you'd think, even though it was kind of a brutal crime.

[01:18:19] So, I mean, like, I'm not of the mindset that, like, everything has to, you know, be...

[01:18:24] Like, if you wrap yourself in a blanket, maybe you kind of get off scot-free.

[01:18:27] I don't know.

[01:18:29] But at the same time, I think that would have been a great talking point for the defense and could have really done something for them.

[01:18:36] But it's like they wanted to fight Sarah Carbaugh so bad they didn't take that easy point.

[01:18:40] Right.

[01:18:42] Right.

[01:18:42] Also, I think, like, he started off with this kind of nice bullet point, like four bullet points of where we were going.

[01:18:50] And I felt like this meandered a lot.

[01:18:54] It meandered a lot.

[01:18:55] He then returned to the topic of Dave McCain, an older gentleman who was at the Moen on High Bridge that day.

[01:19:02] He was on the trails that day.

[01:19:03] He said that Dave McCain arrived at the trails sometime between 2 and 3, and he did not hear any sounds of people crying out because they were being murdered.

[01:19:15] I would stress between 2 and 3, keep in mind, according to the state's timeline and the phone not moving, that would seem to suggest the crime was over by 2.32.

[01:19:26] So it's entirely possible by the time he was at the High Bridge, it was all over.

[01:19:29] Also, I think what Rosie said here was really being very generous.

[01:19:33] He talked about him being there between 2 and 3, Shelby Hicks getting there around 2.30.

[01:19:38] It seemed to me like when they were actually cross-examined, things started looking later and later.

[01:19:44] Yes, yes, that's very fair.

[01:19:46] So I don't take the 2 p.m. or the 2.30 that seriously there, to be frank.

[01:19:52] He claimed that the state has ignored the theme of multiple people possibly being involved, but then in his next breath he said, oh, by the way, Beto Blesenby said he once believed there was more than one person involved.

[01:20:03] So the state had ignored it and considered it.

[01:20:07] He said that somebody could have accessed the bridge through Teresa Liebert's property, I think.

[01:20:13] Was that it?

[01:20:14] Or like that she saw a strange van that day that should have been investigated more.

[01:20:18] But she also saw a person that she didn't seem to remember what he looked like at all.

[01:20:23] And that went nowhere.

[01:20:24] And it was a person at the mailbox hours beforehand.

[01:20:29] I don't know.

[01:20:31] He said very little.

[01:20:34] There was no DNA.

[01:20:35] And then he started talking about Richard Allen.

[01:20:37] What do we know about Richard Allen's actions in February?

[01:20:41] Well, we know he picked up the phone and called police and told them he was there.

[01:20:44] Yeah, but what did he do that day?

[01:20:47] What did he do the day before?

[01:20:48] What did he do the day after?

[01:20:50] Like, was he okay at that point?

[01:20:52] Was he just living his life?

[01:20:53] Was he having some sort of crisis?

[01:20:55] I mean, like, give us something.

[01:20:58] And then he says in 2022, Richard Allen cooperated with police.

[01:21:01] Even knowing he was a suspect, he returned to the station to have another interview where he asserted his innocence.

[01:21:09] Even after Rosie says that Richard Allen's wife was leveraged.

[01:21:13] But Richard Allen still maintained his innocence.

[01:21:16] I mean, he cooperated, except he didn't let them search his house or his phone.

[01:21:20] And Richard Allen kept working at CVS after the murders.

[01:21:27] He talked about, again, the magic bullet and how Warren, their expert, had some qualms with the analysis.

[01:21:37] Of course, Warren did not actually analyze the bullet himself.

[01:21:42] He has, I believe, Rosie acknowledged that, didn't he?

[01:21:45] He did.

[01:21:45] He said, you know, he didn't, basically, he didn't do it because he didn't need to do it.

[01:21:52] And then I think he was, yeah.

[01:21:56] Yeah.

[01:21:57] That was basically it.

[01:21:58] He talked about the false confessions or what he said were false confessions.

[01:22:02] He said that Richard Allen was forced, was, Richard Allen was tossed into a secure cell and then treated like the rest of the prisoners.

[01:22:09] Oh, he used an Anya-esque pun at one point with the ballistics.

[01:22:13] Can I just say that?

[01:22:14] Oh, yeah, do that.

[01:22:14] He said the science is under fire regarding ballistics.

[01:22:19] But that's not really what they got into, I mean, with Warren.

[01:22:21] I mean, they mentioned, in fairness, actually, they did mention with Warren there's like a critical community that is sort of critical of ballistics.

[01:22:28] So they did get into that.

[01:22:29] But I think what they were saying with Warren was Oberg may have gotten it wrong and her report wasn't any good.

[01:22:36] So, yeah.

[01:22:37] But, you know, the pun, the pun still stands.

[01:22:41] The alleged false confessions.

[01:22:43] He said Richard Allen was tossed into a secure cell and then treated like the rest.

[01:22:46] But the rest were convicted and Richard Allen wasn't convicted.

[01:22:50] He talked about how Richard Allen was on suicide watch.

[01:22:53] He talked about the conditions in the cell.

[01:22:55] It was like a steel toilet, concrete floors.

[01:22:57] When Richard Allen goes to therapy, he was shackled and traveled with a leash.

[01:23:05] He said solitary confinement is a form of torture that will eventually make anyone break.

[01:23:12] And Richard Allen was in solitary for 15 months.

[01:23:15] Are those 13?

[01:23:16] 13 months.

[01:23:17] He said Trooper Harshman was a good cop.

[01:23:21] But he pointed out that Trooper Harshman wasn't too disturbed about Richard Allen's treatment.

[01:23:26] Because he says Trooper Harshman said that Richard Allen was right where he belonged.

[01:23:32] He talked about the Dr. Walla.

[01:23:37] He talked about the videos showing Allen struggling and who could see those videos and not say he was psychotic.

[01:23:46] Who could quote who could possibly watch that video and then, you know, say that he was oriented to a time and place.

[01:23:53] He said that in prison, the goal was to, quote, keep him alive.

[01:23:57] That was it.

[01:23:59] And not not not better his mental health, but just literally keep him alive as a safekeeper.

[01:24:06] Talked about delirium and false memories.

[01:24:10] He noted that, you know, he felt the I did it stuff was a false belief that Richard Allen had.

[01:24:20] He said that Libby's fucking we're kind of jumping around, but that's how this went.

[01:24:23] He said that Liberty's phone was the iPhone.

[01:24:27] You know, quote, does that thing have a story to tell?

[01:24:30] Well, he said that the three most important timestamps are.

[01:24:36] The I guess.

[01:24:38] Oh, this is what he said about the phone.

[01:24:40] Quote, the phone has no personality.

[01:24:42] It has no feeling, no emotions, no opinions, end quote.

[01:24:46] And he talks about the timestamps being important, namely 434 when I guess they said it turned back on as well as 545 p.m.

[01:24:56] and 1032 p.m.

[01:24:59] when when the headphone jack thing was going on.

[01:25:02] Right.

[01:25:02] Right.

[01:25:03] And.

[01:25:05] Then he attacked the idea that there was a 20 foot.

[01:25:08] This was something that McClellan mentioned that I don't know if we mentioned, but there was a shift in elevation on the on Libby's phone,

[01:25:15] according to the health data, which McClellan claimed was the girls being abducted, forced down the hill.

[01:25:23] You know, they're kind of near that access road.

[01:25:25] So he's saying that that's what happened there.

[01:25:27] But Rosie contended the 20 foot shift in elevation didn't make sense because the bridge as a whole was 65 feet.

[01:25:35] And the numbers didn't add up, although I imagine if I don't know.

[01:25:40] I mean, I don't know without like kind of seeing that with the I don't know how to analyze that.

[01:25:45] And then, OK, this is where he starts using ironically.

[01:25:48] OK.

[01:25:49] Was this right?

[01:25:50] Am I just being ignorant myself or he kept on talking about like the location?

[01:25:57] You know, not ironically, the road, the access road led to Brad Weber's house.

[01:26:05] And.

[01:26:06] And.

[01:26:07] I think he mentioned like there were sticks and stuff.

[01:26:11] I just I don't know if he was using ironically correctly there.

[01:26:14] It just kind of threw me off.

[01:26:15] Yeah, he was talking about there were sticks in Brad Weber's garage and then he jumped back to Dr.

[01:26:20] Korr.

[01:26:21] So Dr. Korr's testimony is hard to swallow again.

[01:26:24] Then he jumped over.

[01:26:24] There was no trace evidence.

[01:26:26] He said, quote, it seems like a retrofitting.

[01:26:28] Quote, the state had seven years to figure out five forty five and ten thirty two.

[01:26:33] There's no explanation because the phone is right.

[01:26:36] End quote.

[01:26:37] He said Dr.

[01:26:38] Waller's behavior.

[01:26:40] He called it bizarre that she was infatuated with this case before she treated Richard Allen.

[01:26:47] He mentioned that in Richard Allen's confession to Dr.

[01:26:50] Waller, Richard Allen claimed that he lay in wait.

[01:26:53] And he said, what is this video of bridge guy look like he lay in wait because he was just following her on the bridge.

[01:26:58] I don't understand that argument.

[01:27:00] Is he conceding that Richard Allen is bridge guy?

[01:27:04] He was just power walking past them and didn't notice the thing.

[01:27:07] Even though there's some disembodied voice saying guys down the hill, I guess he would have had to walk past that other guy, too.

[01:27:13] The whole thing doesn't make any sense.

[01:27:14] Here's here's it.

[01:27:15] Here's it.

[01:27:16] We don't see the beginning of their walk down the bridge.

[01:27:20] So I don't know where he gets off saying no one could have laid in wait.

[01:27:26] All we see is is the end.

[01:27:28] I mean, if it showed the whole walk and then, you know, this guy's been like like I like.

[01:27:36] It's it's not logical.

[01:27:39] Well, things get worse.

[01:27:40] So he says there was he claims there was no sound of a cycling gun in the video.

[01:27:45] He said, oh, they want you to think that Richard Allen was an alcoholic.

[01:27:48] Yeah, this is kind of odd because I'm interested in this.

[01:27:52] And yeah, they said he, you know, in with Dr. Martin, he said he drank beers socially.

[01:27:58] Guess what?

[01:27:59] This may blow everybody's mind.

[01:28:01] But sometimes people with drinking problems understate their problem.

[01:28:05] And if he was telling people in any context that he was an alcoholic twice and that Kathy helped him through both instances, then, you know, he might he might have a problem.

[01:28:16] I'm not saying he does, but I don't know why they're suddenly getting all into the.

[01:28:20] And maybe they feel like there's such a stigma with alcoholics that like people might view that against him.

[01:28:26] So they kind of want to clear that up.

[01:28:28] But no, no, no, it's just a social drinker.

[01:28:30] Didn't have a problem.

[01:28:31] You talked about how the witnesses said the bridge guy was walking with purpose, which suggests he had a plan.

[01:28:37] Perhaps he knew the girls were there.

[01:28:38] But Rosie stressed that there is no digital evidence linking Richard Allen to the girls.

[01:28:44] And weirdly enough, his phone from 2017 is missing.

[01:28:46] I'm not saying that I would I would imagine that it would show on Libby's phone if there was some kind of link.

[01:28:50] So I'm not saying anything there.

[01:28:51] But when they keep stressing the lack of phone evidence, all I keep thinking of is where the heck is that phone?

[01:29:00] He said, here's a revelation for you.

[01:29:02] There's a blue Carhartt jacket in a in in every closet in Carroll County or in a lot of closets in Carroll County.

[01:29:09] I think to a certain extent that that is a fair statement.

[01:29:12] It is a very popular look and it's not something that I would expect somebody to be like identified by.

[01:29:17] I think the problem for Alan is that he says that's what he was wearing that day.

[01:29:22] Along with everything else.

[01:29:24] If a person were just to say, oh, I wore a blue Carhartt jacket that day, that would not be enough for an arrest warrant.

[01:29:30] But maybe with a bunch of other things, it's another pebble on the scale.

[01:29:34] Is now a good time to ask you what does totality mean and why is that important in this case?

[01:29:39] What do you mean?

[01:29:40] Well, like the totality for me.

[01:29:41] To me, this is a case where there is no necessarily single completely slam dunk piece of evidence that it's like, whoa.

[01:29:48] But to me, the totality of all of this is devastating.

[01:29:53] Yes.

[01:29:53] The we're talking about essentially what is the piling up of different facts to me is devastating.

[01:29:59] And it was made more devastating, I think, for me today when I heard it all at once as opposed to kind of drip, drip, drip, drip.

[01:30:08] It felt like more like a landslide.

[01:30:10] And I guess, yeah.

[01:30:13] I mean, totality of circumstances here.

[01:30:16] If someone's just wearing it says they have a blue jacket and they probably wore it that day, who cares?

[01:30:20] If someone drives a Ford Focus type vehicle, who cares?

[01:30:24] If somebody, I don't know, like to go to the trails with their family.

[01:30:29] None of that matters.

[01:30:31] Alone, that does not matter.

[01:30:32] But all of it together, saying that you walked the path of bridge guy wearing the clothes of bridge guy.

[01:30:40] You sound exactly like bridge guy.

[01:30:42] Your lawyers seem to be very intent on defending bridge guy.

[01:30:46] I don't know.

[01:30:47] See, one of many things I love about you is you'll ask me a question and then answer it yourself.

[01:30:52] So I can just sit back and relax.

[01:30:54] Well, you seem like your throat was getting a bit dry.

[01:30:55] So I figured I'd just step in and help you.

[01:30:57] I love it.

[01:30:58] I love taking it easy and not talking.

[01:31:01] You came to the right place then.

[01:31:04] Because I never shut up.

[01:31:06] No, no, no.

[01:31:07] As far as I'm concerned, you don't talk enough.

[01:31:09] No.

[01:31:10] So Rosie talked about how the prosecution said that Richard Allen found God.

[01:31:14] And that is why Richard Allen came clean and started confessing.

[01:31:17] And then Rosie said, well, in a cell and circumstances, what else would you expect to find?

[01:31:22] Can you blame Richard Allen for finding God?

[01:31:26] And I found that fascinating because he's responding to an argument that as far as I could tell, no one was making.

[01:31:32] I don't believe Nick McClellan ever stood up and said, isn't it awful that this guy likes God?

[01:31:38] What is this, like the next God's Not Dead movie?

[01:31:41] I mean, yeah.

[01:31:41] I don't think anyone was criticizing him for becoming a Christian.

[01:31:46] I don't remember anyone making that argument.

[01:31:48] So that was interesting.

[01:31:50] He talked about how Trooper Harshman indicated that he'd listened to hundreds of hours of Allen's phone calls and stuff.

[01:31:57] And he, that Trooper Harshman felt that the voice of Bridge Guy was the voice of Richard Allen.

[01:32:04] And Rosie said, well, you know, lots of people tipped at voices that they thought were the voices of Bridge Guy.

[01:32:12] And then Rosie said, let's take a 10,000 foot view.

[01:32:15] He said, no one positively ID'd Richard Allen as the man on the bridge.

[01:32:19] That's a fair point.

[01:32:20] And one that I feel maybe should have been emphasized more and earlier.

[01:32:26] He said, no one piece of digital data connected Richard Allen.

[01:32:30] No DNA connected Richard Allen.

[01:32:34] No speck of trace material connected Richard Allen.

[01:32:38] That was the laundry list that I felt should have been the centerpiece of his entire argument.

[01:32:42] And this is when he made the comment we discussed earlier where he said, well, if you believe Sarah Carball,

[01:32:46] there was so much blood on him that there should be DNA still in the car.

[01:32:50] But, you know, she pissed us off during a deposition.

[01:32:52] So let's just bash her instead of actually making this point more prominent.

[01:32:56] I mean, that's what it felt like.

[01:32:59] And he says, oh, the magic bullet is no more than a tragic bullet.

[01:33:03] That was the dumbest thing.

[01:33:04] I mean, no, no, no, no, no, it wasn't.

[01:33:06] But at that point I did roll my eyes because that's just, come on, what are we doing here?

[01:33:10] I mean, I can deal with the pun under fire.

[01:33:12] That's fine.

[01:33:12] I'm there with you.

[01:33:13] But no, not a tragic bullet.

[01:33:16] This is just.

[01:33:18] So I think this is where things started to take a turn.

[01:33:24] I can't believe they did this.

[01:33:27] I just, it was, this was the tragic whatever the heck.

[01:33:31] He said, let's say that you think these confessions are a smoking gun.

[01:33:36] And then on the screen he shows a picture of a medieval torture rack.

[01:33:41] And then there's an illustration of it being used.

[01:33:43] And then there was an illustration of a thumbscrew.

[01:33:46] And then an illustration of the thumbscrew being used.

[01:33:49] And he says, you know, as a society we've evolved such things.

[01:33:53] We've evolved beyond such things.

[01:33:55] And, you know, but throwing someone into a cell by themselves, that's a slow torture.

[01:34:02] Someone should have said something.

[01:34:04] And they start showing pictures of Richard Allen in the cell.

[01:34:09] And then I think at this point they show an image of a person who is completely covered by a huge snake, perhaps a python that is wrapped around him.

[01:34:21] And Rosie says that that is the power of the state.

[01:34:25] And he says, now it is not time to step back to these old ways of torture.

[01:34:31] No man or woman should be treated like this.

[01:34:35] And if you render a verdict of guilt, it would be endorsing this sort of thing.

[01:34:41] And, of course, that's not true.

[01:34:42] Because if you render a verdict of guilt in this case, all you would be doing is saying that you think Richard Allen is guilty of the crime of which he was charged.

[01:34:50] There was no verdict form on what you think about whether or not the rack or the thumbscrew should be brought back.

[01:34:56] I felt this ending was so over the top and absurd.

[01:35:02] It sounded like something a character on Saturday Night Live, an exaggerated defense attorney character would do.

[01:35:10] I thought it just seemed dumb.

[01:35:12] It just seemed dumb.

[01:35:13] And it seemed embarrassing.

[01:35:15] I like facepalmed.

[01:35:17] Like I just couldn't.

[01:35:18] I mean, like I was like, I just kind of went like, oh, geez.

[01:35:21] Like, OK.

[01:35:24] Oh, God.

[01:35:25] And also the thumbscrew picture was so ridiculous.

[01:35:27] It was like a bearded man screaming.

[01:35:29] Do you remember that?

[01:35:30] I do.

[01:35:30] That was up on the screen forever.

[01:35:32] It felt like it felt like middle school PowerPoint essay something where somebody thinks they're making a big point with a capital P.

[01:35:39] And frankly.

[01:35:42] As somebody.

[01:35:44] I literally.

[01:35:44] OK.

[01:35:45] One of my.

[01:35:46] Here we go.

[01:35:48] One of my interests in college.

[01:35:51] Not so much anymore.

[01:35:52] So don't ask me about it.

[01:35:53] But I was very interested in the Jesuit mission to England during the Tudor era.

[01:36:03] Sort of.

[01:36:03] If you want to speak generally.

[01:36:05] You know, I'm talking about like Robert Southwell, Henry Garnett, the gunpowder plot, etc.

[01:36:10] So you can imagine that the rack was something that I would encounter a lot in reading about that.

[01:36:15] So I know a little bit about it.

[01:36:17] I mean, like I know who Richard Topcliffe is.

[01:36:20] He was like the Queen's torturer in that.

[01:36:22] I mean, he had a rack.

[01:36:23] But he was.

[01:36:25] People often.

[01:36:25] You know, there was the rack.

[01:36:27] But then you could also like hang someone up by their arms.

[01:36:29] Like there were all these different things that they would do to people to get them to break.

[01:36:32] And, you know, certainly these kind of torture devices are horrific.

[01:36:36] Right.

[01:36:36] But I feel like when you're breaking out the medieval torture devices in this context and then you're hearing about how Richard Allen was like calling his like.

[01:36:45] The people who were being racked weren't getting, you know, tablets to call, you know, the Vatican and complain about their conditions or whatever.

[01:36:54] I mean, they were, you know, like it's possible to put out such an extreme example that you almost make the actual hardships that your client underwent look very pale in comparison.

[01:37:07] So if I.

[01:37:10] If I have a dangerous kayaking accident where I tip over and my kayak sinks and I need to be rescued and then I start going on about how it was just like the Titanic, you know, like I maybe people might be like, OK, well, people people died during that.

[01:37:27] But, you know, just just because you can do an extreme and dramatic historical example does not make it an apt one, frankly, and does not make it something that you should do.

[01:37:40] Because, again, all I could think of is, oh, my God.

[01:37:43] And then throwing in, oh, my God.

[01:37:45] OK, so.

[01:37:46] So, yeah.

[01:37:46] So I'm I'm that was my focus in college and I was interested in it.

[01:37:50] So I'm hung up on that.

[01:37:52] And then suddenly they hit me with a big picture of a snake.

[01:37:54] And I'm just like, what?

[01:37:56] And then they're like, the snake is the government.

[01:37:58] And like, what?

[01:38:00] The snake is the power of the government.

[01:38:02] And if you vote guilty, you're saying this is great.

[01:38:05] And you're endorsing the government, I guess, smothering people.

[01:38:10] Makes no sense.

[01:38:11] It makes no sense.

[01:38:11] And that's not an argument of strength when you're a defense.

[01:38:15] It's not an argument of strength.

[01:38:16] It's not an argument of logic.

[01:38:17] It's not an argument of intelligence.

[01:38:19] It's not an argument of confidence.

[01:38:21] Here's the thing.

[01:38:22] If you want to have a conversation about how we do or should treat prisoners who are difficult to keep safe because of the nature of the crimes of which they are charged.

[01:38:34] If you want to have a conversation about how we should treat prisoners who are behaving in extreme ways, which Richard Allen clearly was, we can have that conversation.

[01:38:44] It's a good conversation to have.

[01:38:45] And maybe we should put more resources in there.

[01:38:48] That's maybe this trial can start those conversations.

[01:38:51] I think that's great.

[01:38:52] I don't know.

[01:38:53] But that's not what this trial is about.

[01:38:56] This trial is ultimately about what happened on February 13th, 2017.

[01:39:00] And this is a clumsy and perhaps offensive attempt to change the subject.

[01:39:06] And by trying to make it into, oh, you need to render a not guilty verdict or otherwise you are endorsing insane government overreach just is dumb.

[01:39:18] Can you imagine being in the courtroom, the families of the victims who loved these girls, and you hear the closing argument of the person that has been accused of killing them is vote innocent or big snake wins.

[01:39:33] Like, that is just the stupidest thing.

[01:39:36] And it's not a position of strength because what they're basically, what he basically said is like, even if you're guilty, can't let the big snake win.

[01:39:43] Big snake is evil.

[01:39:45] It sounded like I think sovereign citizen came to mind.

[01:39:50] Like just anti-government nonsense came to mind.

[01:39:53] I mean, we all know the government's absolutely capable of making horrible decisions and mistakes.

[01:39:58] And frankly, I myself am troubled by some of the prison conditions discussed.

[01:40:03] But ultimately, that doesn't really change the facts of what happened on February 13th, 2017.

[01:40:10] And that's what this trial is about.

[01:40:11] Yes.

[01:40:12] I'm all for having a conversation about what changes could be made to prison, pretrial detention.

[01:40:19] How do we figure this out?

[01:40:20] How do we work this?

[01:40:21] Fine.

[01:40:21] Great.

[01:40:22] Let's do that.

[01:40:23] But it seems like Rosie basically wanted to ramble about everything other than what happened that day to those girls and where his client was at the time.

[01:40:35] If I come home with a dent on my car and Anya says, well, why do you have a dent on the car?

[01:40:41] And I want to start talking about dinner or other things or trying to change the subject.

[01:40:45] Like it's obviously the reason I don't want to talk about that.

[01:40:50] Something really bad happened.

[01:40:52] And it's like I like I just came away from this whole thing was like, wow, his client is bridge guy.

[01:40:59] I'm not even talking about Richard Allen.

[01:41:01] I'm just like he's talking about this case like his client is definitely bridge guy.

[01:41:05] Let's talk about Nick McClellan's rebuttal.

[01:41:08] Yeah.

[01:41:09] Big snake strikes back.

[01:41:11] Jeez.

[01:41:12] McClellan said this has been a long four weeks.

[01:41:15] We're now handing the case over to you.

[01:41:17] You're in the driver's seat.

[01:41:20] It's not we're not here to tell you how to feel.

[01:41:22] You're in the driver's seat.

[01:41:23] Of course, he's talking about the jury.

[01:41:25] He talked about how in the mini opening and the main opening statements, the defense said a lot of things about what the evidence would allegedly show.

[01:41:33] McClellan says they haven't backed it up.

[01:41:36] And we have.

[01:41:36] There are witnesses on the trail who saw a man all identified him is bridge guy.

[01:41:43] He said, quote, which is really just reaffirming what Richard Allen himself said.

[01:41:47] End quote.

[01:41:47] And he's there.

[01:41:49] He's on the bridge.

[01:41:50] And he said at 20 to 13 p.m.

[01:41:54] You know, having witnesses come in who were there more in the 3 p.m.

[01:41:58] hour is a completely irrelevant thing that doesn't.

[01:42:02] That doesn't inform anyone's understanding of the case because it occurred after the abduction and very likely after the murders.

[01:42:10] And about the crime scene, he said that they seem to indicate that since they didn't maybe they didn't scream, it didn't happen.

[01:42:17] He said Richard Allen had a gun.

[01:42:19] It was pointed at the girls.

[01:42:22] Maybe they didn't scream.

[01:42:24] Who knows?

[01:42:24] But Liberty German cried.

[01:42:26] He said, I don't understand how they call it a magic bullet.

[01:42:30] But Melissa Oberg testified that this bullet was in Richard Allen's gun, a gun he never loaned to anyone.

[01:42:38] And she explained that the pictures were not the way to evaluate whether or not that was the case.

[01:42:44] I want to go back to the tear for a second.

[01:42:46] He said, quote, the bloody outline of a tear on her face, scared, fearful, all because of Richard Allen.

[01:42:51] Yes.

[01:42:52] So, again, he's kind of combining the facts with the emotion of it, I think.

[01:42:57] Melissa Oberg said the bullet was in Richard Allen's gun that he never loaned to anyone.

[01:43:02] She explained that the pictures were not the way to evaluate that.

[01:43:06] He said the defense had an expert who could have tested the bullet, but he did not.

[01:43:12] The defense said words matter, but why don't Richard Allen's words matter?

[01:43:17] He offered a detailed confession to Dr. Walla.

[01:43:21] Quote, he said a lot of words to a lot of different people.

[01:43:24] So, Dr. Walla, his mom, his wife, the warden, Dr. Martin, almost anyone who would listen he was trying to make statements to.

[01:43:36] McLean said that in these confessions, Richard Allen gave a logical and organized account of what happened, including details only the killer would know.

[01:43:45] He said Richard Allen is bridge guy, and Richard Allen killed Abby and Libby.

[01:43:50] He said the two victims in this case are Abby and Libby, but they are more than victims.

[01:43:55] He said they were also heroes.

[01:43:58] Liberty German made the video.

[01:44:01] Abby Williams died hiding the phone.

[01:44:07] And he said both of them worked to camouflage the bullet.

[01:44:11] And it is that evidence that was so crucial.

[01:44:14] He said that Becky Patty once said that Liberty German told her that someday she would grow up and help police solve crimes.

[01:44:21] And Nick McLean said that is exactly what she did.

[01:44:24] And she brought Abby Williams along to help her do that.

[01:44:28] It was a very emotional closing statement.

[01:44:30] I heard the, um, at least one of the victims' mothers crying at this point.

[01:44:35] And it was, it was powerful.

[01:44:37] It was really, um, awful.

[01:44:42] Just the whole thing is awful.

[01:44:44] The fact that it's become a circus for these poor people is awful.

[01:44:48] The whole thing is awful.

[01:44:49] Makes me sick.

[01:44:51] And I thought he did a good job.

[01:44:53] I don't think Brad Rosey did a good job.

[01:44:56] If I were the Allen family and I felt at this point that my husband or father or brother or whatever was innocent, I would be very disappointed in the performance of this defense team.

[01:45:08] I'm sorry.

[01:45:09] I'm just going to be honest.

[01:45:10] Like, that's, this was not, this was not anything.

[01:45:15] It was just a laundry list.

[01:45:19] It was, it was a, it was a laundry list of grievances with some very good points mixed in with a bunch of nonsense.

[01:45:26] I don't know why they don't just extrapolate on the points that are logical and coherent.

[01:45:32] We should wrap up here.

[01:45:33] Did you want to take up just a quick moment to talk about reasonable doubt versus no doubt?

[01:45:37] So this was in the jury instructions.

[01:45:40] They talked about, you know, you do not have to, to convict someone, you do not have to get beyond every possible doubt.

[01:45:47] So what does that mean?

[01:45:49] So it means this.

[01:45:50] If Kevin says, if Kevin is charging me with stealing cereal, doing a heist and someone who looks exactly like me is on the video, something that looks like my car is on the video.

[01:46:04] And maybe they find a strand of my hair at the crime scene, you know, and, and that, that all points to me doing it.

[01:46:12] And my argument is, well, one of my sisters is out to get me and they, they did it and they heisted my hair and left it at the scene.

[01:46:23] And it's all a big frame job.

[01:46:25] And then there's no evidence for that.

[01:46:27] I don't, that's, I've given a possibility that is technically.

[01:46:34] So we might have doubts about Anya's story, but are there reasonable doubts?

[01:46:38] Right.

[01:46:39] Let's say, uh, I told Anya that last night Harrison Ford came over and I had a great conversation with him about Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[01:46:48] Anya might say, well, Kevin, I was here with you and that didn't happen.

[01:46:53] I could say, well, Anya, it happened after you were asleep.

[01:46:56] I didn't want to wake you.

[01:46:59] She'd say, Kevin, I looked online.

[01:47:01] Harrison Ford is in California filming a movie.

[01:47:03] I could say, Anya, are you really so naive to think that Harrison Ford wants people to know exactly where he is?

[01:47:09] He's a celebrity.

[01:47:11] There are security concerns.

[01:47:14] So at this point, there are some.

[01:47:17] You could feasibly say that, yeah, maybe they planted a story and maybe I just didn't hear anything, even though I'm a very light sleeper.

[01:47:24] And maybe it's all true because I can't really prove that it's not true.

[01:47:28] So you can't prove beyond all doubt that I did not have a conversation with Harrison Ford last night.

[01:47:32] But are those doubts reasonable?

[01:47:35] No.

[01:47:36] So that's basically what it means.

[01:47:38] Basically, use your frigging common sense and don't be just making weird stuff up.

[01:47:43] So obviously, pretty much like most of social media on this case would you never want these people on a jury because it's in social media world.

[01:47:52] It's like whatever random thing I can throw together could be a feasible scenario.

[01:47:57] I'm going to cling to it until I die.

[01:48:00] Whereas in the real world, that's not really what you want on a jury.

[01:48:04] So now the jury is deliberating the case.

[01:48:08] Who knows how long it's going to take?

[01:48:10] But what I will tell you is this.

[01:48:12] We are not going to come and do a show and bother you tomorrow with two hours of blather unless there's actually something to talk about.

[01:48:20] So if there's no verdict tomorrow, I don't think we're going to do a show unless something crazy happens.

[01:48:27] I concur.

[01:48:29] I'll say the judge thanked both councils for, you know, thank council for your excellent final arguments.

[01:48:35] That that was a fair thing to say to one party, not the other.

[01:48:40] Not the rack and snake.

[01:48:44] But I'm yeah, we're not going to we're not going to do anything until this actually, you know, and who knows?

[01:48:50] I mean, there's three options at this point.

[01:48:52] He's acquitted.

[01:48:54] There is a hung jury resulting in a mistrial or he is convicted.

[01:48:59] Those are the three options.

[01:49:01] So we don't know.

[01:49:02] There's a lot of, you know, oh, if it's quick, then it means the conviction.

[01:49:06] If it's I don't know.

[01:49:07] We don't know how it's going to go.

[01:49:09] We've all been watching these jurors trying to read their minds.

[01:49:11] No one can read their minds.

[01:49:12] No one can read their minds.

[01:49:12] There are 12 people who are going to make decisions.

[01:49:14] And.

[01:49:16] So probably the next time we talk, you will already know what the verdict is.

[01:49:20] Yeah.

[01:49:21] Or if there is even going to be a verdict or if it's going to hang.

[01:49:24] But I think that's kind of.

[01:49:26] Thank you so much.

[01:49:27] We have to do we have to do analysis.

[01:49:29] So we're not just going to kind of ramble, as Kevin said.

[01:49:31] But anyways.

[01:49:31] Yeah.

[01:49:32] Thank you.

[01:49:33] I was speaking in a charmingly self-deprecating way.

[01:49:36] Well, I just, you know, I just.

[01:49:39] What?

[01:49:40] It's been such a long process and I just, you know, well, it's kind of it's interesting.

[01:49:44] It's kind of in a way it's over.

[01:49:46] It's up for the jury now.

[01:49:47] Yes.

[01:49:48] So we'll just wait with all of you and hopefully be available to talk about something at some point.

[01:49:53] I guess I presume that will happen.

[01:49:56] Yes.

[01:49:56] But we appreciate you kind of sticking with us.

[01:49:58] This has been a difficult and challenging reporting process, but we've met a lot of very kind people.

[01:50:04] And your support means a great deal to us.

[01:50:07] Absolutely.

[01:50:08] All right.

[01:50:08] Well, is that all we have to say, Kevin?

[01:50:10] All right.

[01:50:10] Thanks.

[01:50:11] Bye.

[01:50:28] Please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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[01:51:26] Thanks again for listening.

[01:51:30] Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this murder sheet episode.

[01:51:34] Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

[01:51:42] This show is phenomenal.

[01:51:44] Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people, overcoming tragedy, well-being, like he does it all.

[01:51:56] This is a show for you.

[01:51:57] He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space, just interesting people with interesting life experiences.

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[01:52:25] I would liken it to like you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise.

[01:52:33] Because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.

[01:52:40] On a personal level, Jason is frankly a great guy.

[01:52:43] Yes.

[01:52:44] He's been a really good friend to us.

[01:52:46] And so it's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want.

[01:52:54] It's a really terrific show.

[01:52:56] We really recommend it highly.

[01:52:58] Yeah, I think our audience will like it.

[01:53:00] And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show.

[01:53:03] He's been on our show a couple times.

[01:53:04] We've been on his show.

[01:53:05] He's a terrific guest.

[01:53:07] I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always – I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

[01:53:12] That really resonated.

[01:53:13] Like I do quote him in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[01:53:19] She quotes him to me all the time.

[01:53:20] I do – I'm like, I remember when Jason said this.

[01:53:22] That was so right.

[01:53:23] So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think – and you like us, I think you should give it a shot.

[01:53:27] Give it a try.

[01:53:28] I think you'll really enjoy it.

[01:53:29] And, again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that.

[01:53:40] There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice.

[01:53:46] And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

[01:53:51] But this is something that almost can be like if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime, I think this is kind of the life-affirming stuff that can be nice to listen to in a podcast.

[01:54:02] It's compassionate.

[01:54:04] It's affirming.

[01:54:05] But I also want to emphasize it's smart.

[01:54:09] People – Jason is a very intelligent, articulate person.

[01:54:14] This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show.

[01:54:17] I think you'll all really enjoy it.

[01:54:19] Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building.

[01:54:21] So we're really excited to be a part of that.

[01:54:23] We're fans of the show.

[01:54:24] We love it.

[01:54:25] And we would strongly encourage you all to check it out.

[01:54:28] Download some episodes.

[01:54:29] Listen.

[01:54:29] I think you'll understand what we're talking about once you do.

[01:54:32] But, anyways, you can listen to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:54:37] Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:54:38] Very easy to find.

[01:54:39] Absolutely.